Kernel debug two physical MacBook pro devices

Question: I've asked the same question at stackoverflow, but i'm gonna copy-paste it here as i might get more relevant answers(?):
I'm trying to kernel debug a physical Macbook pro device.
When my setup contains a VM, between a host MacOS and guest MacOS, its working with no problem using lldb -o "kdp-remote <guest_machine_ip>"
my boot-args on my remote (to debug) Macbook are:
user$ nvram boot-args
boot-args       debug=0x44 kext-dev-mode=1 pmuflags=1 -v kcsuffix=debug

When i'm triggering kernel debug using either
sudo dtrace -w -n "BEGIN { breakpoint(); }"
or LEFT CMD + RIGHT CMD + PowerButton, the system is in halt mode, not responsive to anything (Mouse not moving, etc)
But when I'm trying to connect to the machine from the host using the lldb command provided earlier, it's not working.
I've made sure the machines can ping each other and I can set up a SSH connection.
To the best of my understanding, I had to user special Apple adapters (Real™ Ethernet adapter), so I'm using the following adapters to debug the remote machine:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD463LL/A/thunderbolt-to-gigabit-ethernet-adapter

The physical connections setup looks like that:
MacOS-Debugger --(USBC to Ethernet adapter)--> Ethernet cable <-- (ThunderBolt to Ethernet adapter) <-- (ThunderBolt3 to ThunderBolt2 adapter) <-- MacOS-debuggee
Generally for the debugging I used the following tutorial, which worked for VM debugging:
https://knight.sc/debugging/2018/08/15/macos-kernel-debugging.html, I didn't find the exact KDK version, but I don't think it should be the problem here
My debugger is BigSur, and my debugee is Catalina
Any ideas to what the problem may be will be helpful
Answer: So there is an answer in the original post, but what i was missing is the interface where i'll be attaching the debugger at in the boot-args
so I have to add kdp_match_name=en24, where en24 is the physical interface the machines are communicating at
Just adding here the answer as well, as it might help someone in the future


What's the difference between "you" and "one" in the indefinite?

Question: English, especially in the colloquial, often uses you for generic statements about people. For example, When you are angry, you act less rationally is not necessarily a statement about the listener, but about people in general. However, it's also correct (as far as I know) to say When one is angry, one acts less rationally. Is there a difference between these two forms? Is one of them more correct than the other?
Answer: It's generally regarded that the two are grammatically acceptable pronouns in American English. However, "one" is also considered to be more formal than you and excessive use of the word can lead one to appear as overly haughty or pretentious. One can use the pronoun "one" as an impersonal pronoun that's representative of the average person - this generalization can lead to a sense of social superiority.
One of them isn't really more correct than the other - however, "one" can sound rather pedantic when used in relaxed or informal settings. This is realized in the object case when "one" sounds quite odd - "When lemons are handed to one, one should make lemonade."
Sources: Grammar Girl and Capital Community College Foundation
Answer: Unless I'm mistaken, One/oneself is talking about a collection of people, IE: "One cannot simply walk in to mordor" means no one can. Whereas You is personal, IE; "You cannot simply walk in to mordor" means that you alone can't walk in
Comment: One cannot interpret "you" and "one" literally here.


How can I scale down a high-yield recipe that calls for a single egg?

Question: Recipes for muffins and the like often involve eggs and the recipes are usually designed for a yield of about 20. I have a small oven and only want/can make about 5 muffins at a time. What do I do with recipes that have a yield of 20 or 10 muffins, but requires a single egg? Should I beat the egg in a bowl and use a proportional amount, or are there any special rules to be aware of?
Comment: Exactly what you propose : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/1610/67
Comment: @Joe also, there are other possible answers for this question: you could ditch the egg altogether and substitute oil and water, applesauce, etc.
Comment: @Joe Whoops. Maybe this should be closed as duplicate?
Comment: Eh, I think it could go either way. The other question specifically says "half".
Comment: @DanC : I know, that'd why I didn't flag it as a duplicate ... unfortunately, other people have.  If I see it get closed, I'll start the re-open attempt.
Answer: An alternative that wasn't presented in the link above would be to mix the white and yolk together and measure the appropriate amount of egg by volume.  A large egg consists of about 2 - 2 1/4 Tbsp. white and about 1 Tbsp. yolk.  The whole egg, mixed, would total about 3 1/4 Tbsp. (which would be 3 Tbsp. + a little less than 1 tsp. - or just about 10 tsp.).
So for a half egg, you would use 5 tsp. and for a quarter egg, you would use 2 1/2 tsp.  If you are cutting a recipe to 1/3 or 2/3, I would recommend just going for 3 tsp. or 6 tsp. respectively.
Aside from scaling down the volume of the whole egg in your recipe, the next best idea from the link above is probably the recommendation to go by weight (if you have an accurate food scale).
Also worth noting:  Whenever you scale-up or scale-down recipes where ingredients are not specified by weight (recipes that use, say, cups of flour and sugar), the recipe might not turn out quite the same as it would have if you had made a full recipe.  Recipes that don't specify weights are typically not very robust.  If you're going to scale-down, you'll probably have better luck with a half-recipe than you would with a quarter-recipe.


Should we invite book reviews in Q&A?

Question: Would it make sense to make book reviews on topic? I've read some books of interest to the CS educator community but don't know anywhere good to share my thoughts on them. The SIGCSE publication Inroads doesn't publish reviews. I know it doesn't fit with the normal Q&A format ("What did Ellen think of book X?") but thought I'd run it up the flagpole anyway.
Comment: Reviews tend to be highly opinion-based, which makes them a poor fit for Q&A as originally imagined for StackExchange sites.  Still, to say that something's "impossible" just because the right way to do it isn't immediately obvious would seem crass.  Seems like we'd instead want to find some way to reduce the scope of what a "review" typically is to a fact-based analysis.
Comment: I think this sort of discussion is needed somewhere
Answer: I'm not sure whether book reviews themselves really fit this format very well. However, that's not to say there aren't aspects of books that you could ask about in questions and provide self-answers for.
For example, something I think might work:

Should I foo the bar when teaching as suggested by < author >?
I recently read < insert book here >, which suggested that instead of barring the foo, I should foo the bar instead when teaching my students. This goes against what I thought to be true, but there are some compelling reasons for doing this according to the book.
< insert optional relevant quote for people who haven't read the book >
Is this an effective strategy?

In other words, a Q&A site isn't really suited to reviews and opinions, but Stack Exchange is great at challenging and working with new ideas, so—in a way—you can still turn a mini-book review into a question for others to answer. Stack Exchange is about ideas and facts, but it's not great with opinions and reviews. If you can write something that can be more like the former, then you're essentially getting the same thing as a book review (sharing your thoughts on a book's ideas to a larger community) without it just being your ideas.
If you just want to share a review, maybe you could post these in a chat room, or gauge interest in something like a community blog to post these kinds of reviews in a more traditional format.
Comment: @EllenSpertus That _... useful for a class on X?_ type question looks to me to have either on of two possibilites: a) Yes/No type answers, b) subjective answers. In both cases how do I vote good/bad answer to the question? Asking for "longer answers" only makes type-a _look like_ type-b answers, without truly changing what the results really are.
Comment: Thanks. What would you think of: "Is  useful for a class on X?"
Comment: @EllenSpertus I think it'd probably be okay. Not much different to the typical [tag:lesson-review], which seems to be accepted on this site, so I think that'd be a totally valid question to ask.
Answer: My instinct: yes. Here is why.
I perused the ME.SE site to see what we could glean from arguably our closest-in-spirit fellow SE community. They have two tags that speak to the potential usefulness of questions focused on books: reference-books and textbooks. I see no reason why we couldn't do the same.
I'll give two precise examples.
Consider this sample question: "I am looking for a beginner-friendly CS book to assign AP Computer Science Principles students as a summer reading assignment. What book can I use that would introduce them to the big ideas of how computers work? An ideal selection would cover the basics of software and hardware, introduce binary, and give an overview of how a CPU works. Bonus for including an introduction to the concepts of programming languages, including algorithms.
In my mind, said question is perfectly on-topic and precise enough to be an acceptable list question since it provides specific criteria for evaluation. Whether posted as a self-answer or not, this would be a great question to have within our community.
To get closer to an actual review, consider this alternative: "I'm looking at developing an independent study CS class for 1 student (or maybe a small group). I've looked into the Nand 2 Tetris material and find it compelling. However, I am wondering about the quality of the companion book. Is it a sufficient resource for students in terms of explaining all they need to know in order to complete all 12 assignments? At what level is it written?"
This, too, could be a question for the community or an opportunity for self-answer. A valuable enough question in either respect will gain up-votes and be perfectly on topic for a community of CS educators.
Choosing/reviewing books is an important aspect of teaching (even the choice to intentionally forgo a textbook altogether). In that respect I think it would be a disservice to this community (and to Googlers who stumble upon us) to not find a clear way of including some sort of book review process.
At the end of the day, as long the question both adds value and contains specific criteria by which answers can merit deserving votes, then I am all for it.
Answer: Unfortunately this creates an ethical dilemma for any authors on the site. I'm pretty prolific and (of course) think my books are very good (the best). But I'm also anonymous. So, either I reveal my identity or have a conflict of interest in promoting my own work.
I also think that some other competing books say and do terrible destructive things that students will need to un-learn. In a public arena I'm happy to say that and have communicated with authors on such things. But here, I again think I have a conflict of interest, unless I reveal my identity.
You could, of course have a gag rule for authors, but it is unenforceable. And if it applies only to pseudonymous authors it is even worse.
Even given that I'm happy to be objective about my own work, the ethical issue doesn't go away.
Comment: I'm not worried about pseudonymous reviews by authors, which would likely be rare. A review on Amazon would likely have a bigger effect than here.
Comment: I'm worried about honesty and transparency, not the effect on sales.
Comment: I don't see this as differing significantly from other dishonest things one could do with a pseudonym, such as recommending one's own teaching resources.
Comment: I think there is a difference. If I'm anonymous and recommend a resource I have to give its pros and cons (mostly pros, probably). My real life reputation gives it no credence since people don't know who I am. If I'm selling a resource I recommend I'd consider it exactly the same as recommending my own book anonymously. Recommending something and then giving it away anonymously gives me back nothing, not even rep. Sorry if this comment is a bit of a muddle. Tired.

Should we invite book reviews in Q&A?


Lost and found on Cycladic islands

Question: On a hike yesterday my girlfriend and I found a watch that could have considerable value to someone on one of the smaller Cycladic islands in Greece. We've been asking around whether somebody reported it as lost. At the police station we've been told reluctantly that they would keep it until the owner claims it or a year passes. We are not convinced this would help, because they seem to lack any kind of lost & found infrastructure. Does somebody know of any alternatives?
Comment: Police is the right place. Think about the person who lost it. He would check probably to police (also because maybe he needs some proof for insurance). Ferry line could be an alternative, but because police was reluctant without telling you alternative, I think there are no alternative.
Answer: Anyone who has found a lost thing must notify the person who lost it or another beneficiary or the police authority within 14 days (10 days in case of finding a Police Identity Card). Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
The Police Department is required to draw up a finding voucher with the details of the finder.
The finder is entitled to request a reward from the beneficiary. After one year from the notification of the police authority and provided that the beneficiary has not been found, the finder acquires the ownership of the thing.
If the finder does not receive the item he / she is entitled to within the time specified by the police authority, the ownership shall be transferred to the municipality of the place where the thing was found.
Anyone who has found a thing in a residential building or in an area intended for the use of the public (eg an airport) must hand it over to the owner of the building or to the lessee or to the person in charge of the site. In this case, the person to whom the thing was delivered is considered to be the finder.
Sources: Articles from 1081 to 1093 of Greek Civil Law, see here or here.
Comment: Welcome to Travel SE and thanks for your contribution! Could you add some sources to back up your answer, e.g. links to the respective rules (English is best but Greek will be just fine)?
Comment: Articles  from 1081 to 1093 of Greek Civil Law [link] https://www.lawspot.gr/nomikes-plirofories/nomothesia/astikos-kodikas[/link] or [link]http://www.freelaw.gr/ak[/link]
Comment: Thanks a lot. I took the freedom to incorporate these links into your answer, as they can get lost when a comment is deleted. +1
Comment: Thank you all, that's a very clear and thorough answer!

Lost and found on Cycladic islands


Nietzsche's perspective in Philosophy of Art

Question: What is the meaning of the pair Apollonian and Dionysian in Nietzsche's philosophy of art? In which work does Nietzsche expand his view?
Comment: Is there any chance you could spell out a little further what exactly the problem is you're encountering in your study? What have you been reading that has made this an important or interesting problem? What has your research uncovered so far?
Comment: The real question is, What is Nietzsche's thought about philosophy of art? (Apollonian and Dionysian) I want to know the perspective of Nietzsche in the philosophy of art. By how he describe the philosophy of art in his own way.
Comment: birth of tragedy...
Answer: The text is The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, an 1872 work of dramatic theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Tragedy
The Apollonian (according to Nietzsche's usage of the term) is the principle of the individualization (Principium Individuationis), it represents the social/historical force that creates the society, the individual, the personality, the civilization, consciousness etc.
It is based on Logos, reason, clarity etc and represents the ability of the individual in the progress of human society to create a rational image of the self inside the world.
The main aesthetic element is the clear form.

Just as in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with howling mountainous waves, a sailor sits in a boat and trusts in his frail barque: so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual sits quietly supported by and trusting in his principium individuationis. Indeed, we might say of Apollo, that in him the unshaken faith in this principium and the quiet sitting of the man wrap therein have received their sublimest expression; and we might even designate Apollo as the glorious divine image of the Principium Individuationis, from out of the gestures and looks of which all the joy and wisdom of "appearance," together with its beauty speak to us.
– The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche Russell & Russell 1964 p25)

The Apollonian is contrasted with the Dionysian, that represents the chthonic (χθόνιο) (ground-earth) element, the  incapability of creating a rational view of the world, the instinct.
One can observe the difference of these two elements as expressed in art forms. Some of those incorporate both elements but some represent more one or the other.
Answer: Nietzsche develops his thoughts on European art in his essay from 1872 The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. Already in the first sentence he introduces his thesis that any development of art is bound to the pair Apollonian and Dionysian. He introduces both terms as a pair of opposed drives. As a first approximation he relates them to the two human states of dream and frenzy (German: Rausch).
For me it is rather difficult to follow Nietzsche's text and to make any sense from the big words in his general statements. The author asserts far reaching claims,  makes comparisons, but he does not give arguments. He alludes to his precursors in philosophy of art, in particular to Friedrich Schiller. The terms Apollonian and Dionysian had been introduced before by the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling in an essay from 1795/96 Über das Studium der Griechischen Poesie.
The essay is one of the earliest works of Nietzsche. It results from his time as professor of classical philology and from his adoration of Richard Wagner, who at this time was his mentor in arts.
It is well known that the essay was also his swan song in this discipline. After publication his reputation as classical philologists was ruined and Nietzsche started his career as philosoph. Later Nietzsche added a second preface entitled Attempt of self-criticis (German: Versuch einer Selbstkritik) where he pulls the book to pieces.


Two way deterministic multihead counter automata or logspace TM with counter

Question: Is that known something about languages recognized by two-way deterministic multihead counter automaton or logspace TM with counter (equivalent model)? This class called Aux2DC in my advisor's paper. Or about such nondeterministic class? I've obtained that class of languages recognized by such nondeterministic maschines includes NL and it seems to be included in LOGCFL. Are there any papers on this subject? Is that result trivial?
Answer: A two-way deterministic (nondeterministic) multi-head finite automaton can be simulated by a logspace DTM (NTM), and vice versa.
So, for including class $ \mathsf{NL} $, you do not need a counter!
The value of the counter belonging to a two-way nondeterministic multi-head finite automaton with one-counter can be bounded by a polynomial, otherwise, the computation enters an infinite loop. Since both such a counter and the input heads can be simulated in logspace, $ \mathsf{LOGCFL} $ upper bound can be replaced with $ \mathsf{NL} $.
Note that any language recognized by a two-way deterministic (nondeterministic) one-head finite automaton with one-counter is in $ \mathsf{L} $ ($ \mathsf{NL} $).
There are many papers on these topics, e.g. this paper. You can find more after some googling. (Check also Lemma 1 of this paper.)
Comment: Thank you, I knew about L (NL) simulation by multihead (nondeterministic) two-way automaton. First I thought that I obtained NL inclusion for deterministic automaton with counter, but it suddenly appeared that in my reduction raized nondeterminism and  I fixed post but not as properly as I should.

I'll study these papers, thank you very much!


Missing label points with fishnet creation

Question: I am trying to create a fish net with label points in Arcmap 10. I can get the polyline or polygon of a grid on my project, but I am missing the label points on the map in both data and layout view. In creating the fishnet I have clicked the create label points box. A layer is created and shows up in my TOC, but when I zoom to layer it takes me to white space. The attribute table for the point label layer is also empty.
Answer: I suspect that you may need to use Define Projection on both your fishnet polylines/polygons and the accompanying labels feature class.
It seems odd that you would have no labels so I think you should repeat the steps in your workflow and record the tools and parameter values that you used.


Is the portrayal of Drax in the MCU true to the comics?

Question: I am referring primarily to the comedic aspects of his portrayal: his method of speech, disrespect for and confusion regarding certain species, the moving so slowly he becomes invisible, taking things overly literally, etc.  (I'm sure others have other examples.)
Comment: You mean aside from the fact that Drax (in the comics) is human?
Answer: Not really
In the comics, Drax evolved a lot. He was introduced by Jim Starlin in his original 1970s Thanos story in Iron Man and Captain Marvel, as a superbeing created by the Titan Chronos from a dying man in order to combat Thanos. This man's daughter, incidentally, became the Avenger Moondragon. This first version of Drax was very powerful (among other things, he could shoot energy blasts from his hands), but also a bit slow, and was in later issues portrayed as also being rather slow of mind.

Much later, in 2004, he underwent a transformation where he physically came to resemble the MCU Drax, with a more squat body, red patterns on his skin, and a penchant for wielding knives. He lost most of his powers, but in return gained intelligence and ninja-like stealth abilities. He played a central role in the Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest events and later joined the comcs version of Guardians of the Galaxy.

The MCU version marries Drax's redesigned looks from 2004 with his 1970s  slowness of mind and made him an alien. There is nothing in the comics of him being taking things very literally. So, the MCU version isn't all that true to the comics version(s), though some core aspects remain.
Comment: ..sorry, maybe just a bit of clarity could be added to the answer. It seems like you're saying that the design seen in MCU (introduced in 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy) originated in the comics via a 2004 redesign...i.e. the MCU look is from the comics - not that the comics re-did his design because of the movies. Correct?
Comment: I like the description "slow of mind"


Is the US a welfare state?

Question: Is the US considered a welfare state? If so, where would it be classified using the Esping-Andersen's welfare classification?
Answer: In  Esping‐Andersen's The three worlds of welfare capitalism typology, the USA is classified as a "Liberal" welfare state (along with the UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland) and in contrast with the "Conservative" type (Finland, France, Germany, Japan) or the Social Democratic (Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Austria) (Source)
Esping Andersen is not using "Liberal" in the sense that it is used to describe more left-wing Democrats in the USA. It implies modest means-tested benefits, aimed mostly at the working class with strict entitlement rules, and considerable social stigma attached to receiving benefits.
Comment: Esping-Andersen is a Danish sociologist and he is using the term "liberal" in the usual sense that it is used in Europe. Also, the strict division of welfare in the three categories that Esping-Andersen is using is somewhat controversial as he herself acknowledges blends exist.
Answer: It should be noted that the whole point of Esping-Andersen's welfare classification is to not look at welfare expenditure, which is/was the received method of classification. If we go by this more classical measure, which despite  Esping-Andersen's viewpoint didn't go out of style with economists, the US scores somewhat below the OECD average, but not by a whole lot...

...but not so low if you consider the ACA (Obamacare) private health insurance as mandatory... (The large yellow sub-bar in the US case)

... which didn't last as mandatory for long during Trump's presidency.
Also of note, other post Esping-Andersen classifications that attempt to account for the healthcare dimension come a somewhat different picture, in which the US and the UK are similar on one dimension (the  Esping-Andersen decommodification, basically), but quite different on the healthcare one (in the non-Obama US approach)...
Comment: @JAD the north-south divide in Europe has traditionally been the Alps/Pyrenees
Comment: @JAD Dutch here. We refer to any countries (that start) below Belgium as "South Europe". Only one I'm not sure about is France. That's possibly through the middle.
Comment: Interesting to see Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Austria classified as Northern European.
Comment: @JAD how so? That's certainly how I would categorize them. Possibly because I'm Greek, but I have always thought of the horizontal divide being quite clearly between North and South with no center. So Germany, France etc would be North while Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal would be South.
Comment: @terdon I would call France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium (and Luxembourg) Western Europe. Austria probably belongs with Germany culturally, but both west and north is a bit of a stretch geographically. North Europe in my (dutch) mind is more like Scandinavia.
Comment: @JAD That is indeed odd, I'd expect the Scandinavian countries there (incl. Denmark), nothing below that.

Is the US a welfare state?


What genes are the muscles, nerves, bones and blood?

Question: I have a question about genes. The question is that bones, muscles, nerves and blood are each made on which genes. Father or mother genes? Does the person take any of the characteristics of the mother or father? Thank you.
Comment: The question is very unclear. I don't know either what you mean by mother and father gene. You are maybe referring to maternally vs paternally inherited chromosomes. Then, the answer would be both. You should just have a look to a intro to genetics.
Answer: Most genes case:
Let's state back what a gene is: it is a portion of the genome, numerous versions of a gene exists (called alleles). But one individual can only have two alleles in the same time (one from his mother and one from his father). So gene coding for nerve, muscles are present in both your mom and dad, and you will inherit of half of their allele (1 from each). There it is 50/50!
The exception
You maybe know women and men have a slight difference in genome: the sexual chromosome, men have XY and women XX. So the only case I could see a gene only inherited by your father would be that this particular gene is present on the Y chromosome.


Breaker for my subpanel for the pool keep tripping

Question: I have a pool with a sub panel that has a 30amp breaker for the pump, a 20 amp for the lights that is also connected to a small fridge receptacle, the water heater has two 20amps on it. The main breaker for the subpanel is a 60 amp gfci. This breaker keeps tripping. Any suggestions?
Comment: Your going to have to divide and conquer.  My opinion is you likely have a ground fault. Turn off individual breakers until it doesn't trip.
Comment: Tyson this should be an answer. It is the only way to figure this out without equipment to measure the current imbalance.
Comment: Can you post a photo of the breaker panel configuration? I'm *deeply* suspicious that what you're seeing might be due to damage to the GFCI breaker itself...
Comment: How old is the pump?
Answer: Im with Tyson on this one also. I suppose you could also have a short somewhere, or if anything is touching water it will trip a GFCI real fast.
Answer: Probably is a GF, but it could also be a combination of the heater on full blast, the lights on, the fridge running and then the pump comes on. The inrush of the pump starting while everything else is already running may be too much for that 60A breaker.


Being a co-supervisior of a branch proposed for Master thesis from my PhD thesis

Question: I'm a PhD student, writing my project proposal and also a junior teacher in the same university. An ex-student asked me if i would like to co-supervise him in his master thesis and perhaps suggest him a topic of research. It comes in my mind to include him in a task of my PhD project, which might be further explored by him, being also helpful for me. The other supervisor would be my own supervisor.
Would this be ethical?
Answer: I'd consider that an excellent opportunity to get further into research, and gaining a pair of hands in your job (even more, as the advisor will also chip in). As long as everybody is happy with this, particularly the master's student (who clearly is on board, as you were approached in the first place), I don't see any possible ethical problems.
But you'd have to check carefully that this doesn't run against any local regulations.


QGIS: Placing points relative to a specific coordinate

Question: I have some delimited-text point data that is encoded as X,Y positions relative to a given coordinate. So, for example, 1 5 represents a point 1 meter east, five meters north of the origin coordinate. It is essentially a UTM projection but does not use a standard zone. What is the best way to import this data into QGIS?
Comment: Yes, you can figure out some sort of process in QGIS involving custom projections, or PyQGIS scripting.  It involves a bit of research and thinking.  But if it is only one file, you can just open it in Excel, apply a quick formula to convert to the coordinate of the origin point, and then open in QGIS - with little research or thinking.
Answer: If you want to use a UTM-like projection that isn't a standard UTM zone, you can just specify your own Transverse Mercator coordinate system.
Here's the PROJ.4 page on Transverse Mercator projections.
If your grid origin is known in geographic Longitude, Latitude coordinates, your projection will look like:
+proj=tmerc +lat_0=ORIGIN_LAT +lon_0=ORIGIN_LON +k_0=1 +ellps=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs

To create a custom projection in QGIS, go to Settings > Custom Projections... > [+] sign and then give it a name and supply the projection definition from above.
Then to load a CSV, go to Layer > Add Layer > Add Delimited Text Layer and click the globe button next to Geometry CRS. Search for your custom projection, then confirm until your data is added to the map.
Comment: I used the rule you suggested and it seemed to work, except that my point cloud is significantly offset from where it ought to be. [This](https://proj4.org/faq.html#changing-ellipsoid-why-can-t-i-convert-from-wgs84-to-google-earth-virtual-globe-mercator) section of the FAQ seems to be relevant to what's happening, but adding `+nadgrids=@null` to my specification does not solve the problem. I think perhaps `+ellps=WGS84` is not the ideal ellipsoid but I don't know what option would be better. The area I'm working on is in Norway, so it's pretty far north, if that helps.
Comment: Adjust the false easting and northing by your *known coordinate* and this homebrew CRS becomes a *local datum*, used often in mine sites and by users of CAD software... because it keeps the coordinate values small (for example instead of 512341, 7123455 using a local datum becomes 1,5 - less chance of misreading).
Comment: Here is an image of the point cloud overlaid with other (correct) chart shapes: https://imgur.com/a/wEH4y8h
Comment: @JohnAllie It indeed does like a datum/ellipsoid difference. Maybe you can view the CRS information for your polygon file and see what datum/ellipsoid it is in.


Would Princess Garnet's summoner horn being forcibly removed make her a less powerful summoner?

Question: In Final Fantasy IX, Princess Garnet was a summoner with her horn removed.  Wouldn't she not be as powerful of a summoner as Eiko, who is essentially her cousin?
Answer: Possibly. However,

Eiko is much younger than Garnet. Garnet is 16. Eiko is 6.
Garnet has more powerful eidolons than Eiko does.
Garnet is a Summoner sub-jobed White Mage while Eiko is a White Mage sub-jobed Summoner. So Garnet's training and experience is more focused on summoning than Eiko's.
The horn wouldn't necessarily affect summoning power. As I recall, the only definite use of the horn is when Eiko uses it to communicate with Carbuncle at the Iifa Tree.

Eiko: I'm going to ask the eidolon to come back. The
                    summoner's horn allows us to communicate with
                    eidolons and wild animals.

So Garnet lacks the ability to communicate telepathically with Eidolons like Eiko can. But that doesn't stop Ramuh from communicating with Garnet through speech or Garnet from performing summons, so it's not necessarily a insurmountable obstacle.
Comment: All good points.
Answer: Well, if you take images and game models to be indicative of world lore and not just what the developers thought looked cool...

Notice that in her "Trance" state, where she is supposedly more powerful and cranked up, her horn has grown much larger and is now glowing blue.  So, if that's not just to look cool, then I'd say quite definitively, yes, the horn makes a summoner more powerful.
Now, with that said, there's no real indication of that in the lore provided.
For the summoners of Madain Sari, the horn is really the distinguishing feature of their people or race, just like the rat faces of Burmecians.  When she is taken in and adopted by Queen Brahne, her horn is removed to make her appear no different than any other human -- not to remove her power.
At the time she's adopted, we're not sure if Brahne has already been manipulated by Kuja.  But let's assume that she already has her nefarious agenda..  Brahne and Kuja want Garnet around in order to extract her power and the Eidolons bound to her.  If removing the horn would lessen that power, doing so would make no sense.
So basically, I'd say that the in-game lore provided tends towards it being no big deal, but the game models -- if they can be interpreted as extensions or clarifications of that lore -- give a definitive answer that can't really be argued with.
Comment: A couple of nitpicks. First, trance does not affect Eiko's summons, only Garnet's. Second, while it's not impossible Kuja pushed for the horn to be removed it seems unlikely. As you said, the horn was removed to alter her appearance, to make her look like the real Garnet. I infer from this it happened soon after she arrived. With Kuja destroying Madain Sari, the timing doesn't seem right. Additionally according to Doctor Tot, it was the king who ordered the horn removed. Garnet describes the change in her mother as recent and we have no indication her father ever acted strangely.
Comment: All great points.
Comment: @DrewS All fair points.  I'll have to look into them more when I get home and possibly edit or delete my answer.  However the one misrepresentation is your point about the Trance.  I never said that Trance affected Eiko's summoning power.  I just said that the character model shows the summoner's horn getting three or four times larger when her power grows, which signifies that it is a source or at least a catalyst.
Comment: @DrewS Also, it makes perfect sense for Kuja to want the horn removed in order to conceal Garnet's identity until her 16th birthday, when the Eidolons could be removed.  And I don't really see what Kuja destroying Madain Sari has to do with it, honestly.
Comment: The timing just seemed off to me, but perhaps your right, Kuja being the one destroying Madain Sari might not be significant. His airship could outrun a small boat and he might of headed to Alexandria next. I would still think he'd need time to ingratiate himself enough to be involved in the discussion of what to do with Dagger though.


Is centering axle by eye good enough?

Question: I took apart my shimano m770 front and rear hubs, and removed both (!!) cones on each axle. When reassembling everything I ran into the issue of re-centering the axles (so that the rims run in the middle of the fork/frame). What I did was centering the wheels by eye as good as I could, but I'm sure I'm still 1-2mm off center. What I wonder is, if this will cause any problems (I use rim breaks) or if it's totally fine?
Answer: (Re-worked this answer completely because I forgot at first that M770 hubs have nonstandard axles).
First of all, under almost all circumstances, you should leave the integrated cone/axle unit of hubs like this alone, other than maybe the fringe case of making one good one out of two identical bad ones or something weird like that.
I'm assuming it's clear that you must find some way of getting the drive side cone permanently re-attached to the axle, because it doesn't mechanically lock in place like a standard axle. Epoxy in the threads, etc.
The approach I would take here is try to find witness marks on at least one of the cones or the axle that show you about what the original thread engagement was on at least one piece of it when the drive side cone was originally affixed to the axle. Combine that piece of information with the knowledge that the over-locknut dimension is 135mm and you should be able to make everything fall into place.
Alternatively, if Shimano's EV diagrams were 100% to scale, down to the representation of the thread pitch, counting threads on the diagram would get you there pretty closely. I suspect they might be that accurate but I'm not really sure.
But to answer the specific question, nothing is getting put out of alignment in terms of the wheel/rim relative to the frame or brakes if you eyeballed it when putting it back together. It just means that one piece has a little more thread engagement and the other has that much less. In extreme situations that could present its own issues in terms of the parts being properly secured and the threads staying in good shape, and hypothetically as a result of the strong, full-thickness part of the axle being in the right spot, but in this situation 1mm probably won't make any difference.
Comment: The really high strength ones that are intended to permanently immobilize a thread against real forces, probably. Epoxy sounds better to me. A little pack of JB weld is only a few dollars.
Comment: The Shimano diagram is not 100% accurate, just checked it. For locking the cone again, may I just use loctite?
Answer: Quick release axle or bolt-on?  If it's bolt on, you should be fine to just eyeball it.  Quick release should be as even as possible, because if it's too thick on one side, the quick release will not properly close on that side.
Comment: 9mm quick release. Is there a right way to do it? Any tutorial online?
Comment: Ok, so that tells me it's a front wheel too.  So I would use the formula Nathan mentions, take the overall axle length measured in millimeters, subtract the Over Locknut Distance, which is 100mm on front QR wheels, and divide the remainder by 2, then set the first side to that much sticking out, and when you assemble it, the other side should land just right
Comment: @user430 I really don't know how far this goes into it, but try watching this, see if it helps:  [Park tool tutorial](http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/hub-overhaul-and-adjustment)
Comment: This sounds brilliant, can I apply the same method on the rear hub as well? which side should I start with?
Comment: You can use the same method on the rear too, and I don't think it makes a difference what side you start on.  On the rear, remember to put the extra spacer on the drive side, and also that the OLD measurement could be different.  It could be 127, 130 or 135.  Best to measure before you start.  What kind of bike is it?
Comment: There comes something to my mind: I think my axle is shorter than the Over Locknut Distance, so I cannot apply the formula (maybe I'm just dumb, tho). [here is the explosion drawing](http://si.shimano.com/#/en/search/Keyword?name=FH-M770)
Comment: It's a Scott hardtail, 135mm read OLD
Comment: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/63289/discussion-between-cardmechanic-and-user430).

Is centering axle by eye good enough?


What actually improves when you level up alchemy in Skyrim?

Question: You don't have to look too far at all to find mention of what alchemy is or to find people asking for the fastest way to level up alchemy in Skyrim, but what does leveling up the skill actually do for you?  I'm not asking about the perks associated with it - What is it that actually sets a level 29 alchemist apart from a level 20 alchemist?  Why bother leveling the skill up (other than for fun), if you're not going to bother with alchemist perks?
Answer: When you alchemy level increases then the potions you create will become stronger.
The Elder Scrolls Wiki has this table describing the levelling.
Comment: Well, the first sentence is still fairly informative though.
Comment: OP is quite specifically *not* asking about perks.  As such the table is valueless for his purposes.
Comment: I can't find a page that actually lists the formula that's used, but that's probably because it's effect-dependent.  But... this page will calculate everything, and if it's correct, it shows how your skill level affects the potion strength and value independent of any perks:  http://www.garralab.com/skyrim/alchemy.php
Answer: There are two things that change on what you create the higher the level: How strong the potion is, and how much it's worth. Three ingredients make stronger and more worth potion as well. If I'm not mistaken, duration and level change with level too, making a buff potion last longer, and a debuff potion\poison able to be used on higher level mobs.


HSA erroneous deposit and withdrawal by employer

Question: My employer erroneously deducted $1083 from my after tax paycheck and deposited it into my HSA account. When I brought it to my employer's attention they reversed the transaction deducting the $1083 from my HSA and rightfully gave me the money. My bank reported the $1083 as a distribution to the IRS which is incorrect. I went to my bank and they told me there is nothing they can do because it was a distribution. How do I handle this?
Comment: Was this $1083 an excess contribution (over the limits that you are eligible to contribute), or was it simply a contribution that you did not want to make?
Comment: Did your employer include this $1083 amount on your W-2 Box 1 income, or did they deduct it from your income before reporting on Box 1?
Comment: No the 1083 was not in excess, it was a contribution that I did not want to make. Yes they included in income. My normal HSA contribution is post tax. Instead of my normal amount they put 1083 into the HSA account.
Comment: I realize this is an old question but if you can't get the IRS to understand the problem (get documentation from your employer) then your employer should reimburse you for any tax penalty incurred.
Answer: One way to handle this would be to return the money back to your HSA as a mistaken distribution repayment. To do this, you need to tell the bank that the money you are sending in is a mistaken distribution repayment; they may have a form you need to fill out. This option will essentially undo the withdrawal, and if you get this done before you file your taxes you won't owe the penalty and can take the tax deduction for this contribution. Of course, you didn't want to make this contribution in the first place, so this doesn't necessarily fix that problem the way you want all by itself.
Ask yourself if you have had any legitimate medical expenses that have not been reimbursed. You can go all the way back to the point in time when you first opened your HSA.   Remember that there are lots of different expenses that qualify; in addition to doctor visits and prescriptions, things like dental procedures and chiropractic also qualify. See IRS Publication 502 for a list of qualified expenses. If you find that you have had $1083 in unreimbursed expenses (and have the documentation to prove it), then you can claim on your tax return that this distribution was for qualified medical expenses. If you have less than that in expenses, you'll want to return the rest via the mistaken distribution repayment.
You might be tempted to try an excess contribution withdrawal, which is normally done when you find that you have contributed more than your limit. However, the IRS has clarified that excess contribution withdrawals are not allowed if you haven't actually contributed past your contribution limit.


Time for muscular recovery for brass players

Question: I've been practising a lot for an upcoming concert. Before a particularly demanding rehearsal a couple of weeks ago I was able to hit C6 reliably but since then my upper range has been effectively limited to A5 or B5, and my ability to hold notes toward the upper end of that range has been considerably diminished. My jaw muscles are noticeably sore. The concert is in less than a week. How many days of rest might I need before I'm able to use these muscles at their full strength again? Should I limit my playing to a certain amount of time per day, or simply avoid paying high notes? Are there other strategies that might help?
Comment: The problems appears more in your head than lips. If your jaw is sore you are straining and using bad technique. Likely doing that from anxiety of the performance. If your head isn't right it won't matter if you take a day or a week off - anxiety will still be there. Play low long tones softly, think of playing beyond the upper limit of your range as you play higher, and most importantly, participate in activities that will relax you, whatever it is. Being tense is no good.
Comment: I hope you didn't over practice yourself out of a gig.  I've been there before with pit work.  Had to do all guitars on a light strung electric and effects after a month of over practicing on a 12 string, classical, and electric.  There is no formula for recovery.  None of us really know your injury or stress.  If you have the parts memorized you may be able to take it easy then go all out on concert day.
Answer: Obviously everyone is different, and it's pretty hard to answer this generally.  Your teacher is probably the better person to ask.
However, depending on the stress I have undergone a day or two is enough for lip swelling, jaw soreness and even cut lips ( I get small cuts on the inside of my lip because of one funky tooth )
Take care of your face for a couple days; Ibuprofen and maybe some lip saver or chapstick?  When you get back to your horn after a day off make sure you warm up.. play some low long tones, or pedal tones for the first couple days; stay out of the high range.
When you get back to playing, warm up well, stay hydrated, use ice to reduce lip swelling.
Good luck!


How does the Bolster effect in Warzones work?

Question: In SWTOR, if you enter a PvP Warzone and are below level 50, your character is automatically "Scaled" to level 50 with a buff called Bolster - but how does that work numbers wise?  Are you base stats set to level 50 base stats but the equipment doesn't effect it?  Do your stats get multipled in a formula, something like newStat = currentStat*(50/currentLevel)?  Anyone have the specifics?
Comment: It works poorly.
Answer: Pre-release the best formula thrown around was roughly described as follows:

If you are 'naked' in a bracketed match then you will be up to a 90%
  combat stats disadvantage. If you are in an open match then the
  bolster mitigates the difference, not the whole. In other words, you
  will be at about a ((your level/max level) * 80%) + 10% combat stats
  disadvantage. Note that formula is an oversimplification for
  illustrative purposes.

Link for this is here: http://www.swtor-life.com/humor/under-the-hood-the-forumulas-behind-the-mayhem/2268/
I would imagine the actual formula is much more complex to take gear into account, however, practice seems to show that "twinked" 50s gear allows a huge advantage, so, the formula, when it comes to light, is not one for the mind-bending math junkies.
Answer: Bolster has changed dramatically in Game Update 2.0.  Now:

Your base stats are scaled based on your level, to essentially make you a Level 50 and compensate for any skills you may be lacking.  This was true of the previous Bolster but was much less nuanced.
Your gear is scaled to an "expected" Level 50 value.

Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to produce anything resembling real numbers because you'd have to test in a huge variety of gear against various opponents in a huge variety of gear, and then repeat for every level combination!  However, there is also no need for numbers.  You will see a small boost at higher levels due to better skills and the ability to develop a proper rotation and manage your resources (which is why the lowbie PvP brackets are now 1-29 and 30-54) but the intent is for that effect to be minimal, with the real difference coming from personal skill and the Expertise stat.
Expertise has also been completely re-worked.  It now has no diminishing returns and is completely linear (your last point is as helpful as the first).  All endgame PvP gear has the same amount of Expertise and only differs in the amount of other stats.  As noted at the link in my first bullet above:

Once you get your full set of PvP gear you will have the max of your 'PvP stat'. Later sets will have more primary, secondary and tertiary stats and increasing these stats will be how PvPers gain power in PvP, rather than going after a pure PvP stat.


How to Root Sprint Galaxy S6 5.1.1

Question: How to Root Sprint Galaxy S6 5.1.1 with build G920PVPU3BOL1?
Answer: Flash the following kernel to get root
Uni Kernel
Updating the answer based on comments.
Download latest version of Odin (Google for download link)
Turn on USB debugging mode on your phone (Google again)
Install Samsung USB drivers (Locate your phone on Samsung support site to download)
Restart the phone in download mode. Connect your phone to the computer and turn on Odin
Once Odin recognizes your phone, select the kernel by choosing AP.
Flash the kernel.
Comment: Mind to include how to do that? Some instructions would be nice especially for those doing this the first time.

How to Root Sprint Galaxy S6 5.1.1


How to beat 2 singles players playing doubles

Question: What kind of strategy should you use if you are 2 doubles players playing against 2 singles players? Would lobs be a good option?
Comment: Your question seems to be making some assumptions that you haven't included in your question. Why do you think using a different or specific strategy against primarily singles players in a doubles match is something you need to do? In professional tennis, the top doubles teams are able to beat a team made up of singles players by using the same effective doubles strategies they use in all of their matches. The doubles players might choose to attack known weaknesses of the singles players team, but that isn't really different from any other doubles match strategy.
Comment: As federer said...play the ball and not the guy.
Comment: One would think that a starting point might be playing to the center of the court, trying to take advantage of any strategy errors or communication issues.  But I am hopeful that a more knowledgeable and detailed answer will come that this idea stub.
Comment: Only leaving a comment since it is opinion.... For me singles these days are typically played baseline to baseline... but in doubles it is typical to have one player at the net. I have found (myself included) that singles players are not as good at the net especially if they are standing there rather than approaching. Either target the net player or wide enough for them to think twice to go for the ball. they are also less likely to cross infront of the net
Answer: In my opinion lobs would not be a good option, since they do not capitalize on the typical strengths of doubles players.
Assuming none of the players have glaring weaknesses and the differences are just in singles/doubles specialty, standard doubles play should be the strategy. That is, the usual mixture of poaching and varied formations. The effectiveness will come from the skill and experience in playing doubles as opposed to a specific type of shot.


cant see the https\\ when trying to open tor market places such as dream market?

Question: Apologies to all, I'm a complete novice.. From what i have read and my understanding is that one must see the https\ before the name of the website to know it was  totally "safe" or.... "secure" would perhaps be a better word.. in other words there was little ( or perhaps , fractions of a chance) of outside aliens intercepting typed communications. however i have used the old trusted technique of "copy and Paste" with the https\ with  sites such as dream market and every time i penetrate this into tor, it seems to disregard this and it ejaculates without the prefix of the thus said. Resulting in "unsecured connection " relayed via the browser (I) button. so, please advice as to a) the reason for this and B) are these site really secure ?..and maybe my system has been perhaps penetrated without me knowing....hears to wondering.Please advice ..learned ones. Most great full
Answer:

the reason for this

The .onion addresses themselves are the hash of the public key of the site. This means that the information to connect securely are part of the host name. The browser does not show the HTTPS because it is not involved in securing the connection. Security is instead provided by Tor, it ensures that the connection is properly secured. In short, connection to .onion addresses are secure even without HTTPS.
It is worth noting that there are .onion sites that use HTTPS for additional security, DuckDockGo for example. However, this is not suitable for web sites provided anonymously. You need to verify your identity to get a certificate.

are these site really secure

The connections to the sites are secure but neither .onion nor HTTPS provides any guarantees that the sites themselves are secure.
When using .onion and HTTPS you should be aware that …
a) … the provider of a site may share data you enter with anyone they like. They may not know the source of the connection (in case of .onion) but with help of data you provide it may be possible to deanonymize you.
Data like this can be very unique:

e-mail
address
phone number
credit card details
using a login you have used without Tor (they may have recorded your IP)
posting links that contain a user or session ID
or using … (one character) instead of ... (three dots), like I do (may guess is that less than 0.01% of the people have that on the keyboard and actually use it, pretty unique)
… and much, much more

b) … if you provide sensitive data, you have no guarantees that this information is stored securely.
c) … neither .onion nor HTTPS provide any guarantees that the content of the site is true. So, just because the site says "this is the official Tor Project website" or "we won't share any personal data" doesn't mean this is true.
d) … you do not know who controls/operates the site. (This is particularly true for .onion but can also apply to HTTPS.)
e) … you do not know how the infrastructure is secured. (Many sites even neglect to do something as simple as regularly installing security updates.)
Comment: Thank you so much for your super response. clarity has be had. i had noticed that duckduckgo had https thus my question.
Comment: Thank you so much for your super response. clarity has be had. i had noticed that duckduckgo had https thus my question. I wounder if you could elaborate on what you mean by ""secure ( as I'm not entirely sure what i mean by it)... if the site isn't secure ..does that mean that any transactions that take place within it can be a) observed? and b) thus compromised and be traceable back to the source?
Comment: Security advice
Please check the url in the browser to start with 'http://lchudifyeqm4ldjj.onion/'. If the address is different you should logout and login again with the correct url. In case of a phishing attempt please also change your password and contact the support team.
In case you experienced something strange during the login procedure please change your password.
Comment: ..this is the advice from the  site itself... so still a bit confused..
Comment: @spoofer updated the answer. I'm not sure about the advice you found on the page though. If you ask me, you should verify the address before logging in (especially if you click on a link somewhere that says it redirect to the store.)
Comment: yes, that was the case. the link was had from here:https://darkwebnews.com/dark-web-market-list/ ..(.and if you open this)  you can see that all the sites listed start with http\\..., however  the two i tried a click threw opened the sites without the http\\..the other strange thing is that i have also tried and "copy past" the url with the http\\ and the store opens in tor without the http\\.. thus my confusion..
Comment: @spoofer This is is the expected behavior, the browser hides the http:// since it does not add any useful information. In the case of https:// it is shown because it informs you that the connection is secured using SSL.


how can I have equivalent exposure and identical white balance while changing f stops using speedlight?

Question: how can I have equivalent exposure and identical white balance while changing f stops using speedlight? im shooting from shoes when it comes to the moment of changing f stops from 5 to 16 in order to get more depth of field, the white balance changes... any help would be greatful, thanks in advance.
Comment: Sounds like you may be getting more ambient light in the mix at the wider aperture, less at the smaller. How is the white balance changing? What is your shutter speed? What's the room lighting like? What ISO? Are you using manual settings on the speedlight or automatic?
Comment: @Hueco Correct. Read about WB - and immediately forgot it again. Some days I should really stay quiet... ;-)
Comment: @flolilolilo nah, no worries. Sounds like you need to up your strobe game :-)
Answer: Let's pull the question apart...
Assuming a full strobe lit scene...

how to maintain exposure while changing f stop?

The only other variables in play are ISO and strobe power. So if you go from f/4 to f/8, you'd need to correspondingly either raise your ISO two stops or double your strobe power, twice.

how to maintain white balance while changing strobe power

Strobes naturally have a different white balance through the power range. The best thing you can do is use customs white balance and redo it after changing power output.
So, putting it together, to maintain exposure and white balance, you'd need to increase ISO or strobe power, or both, and then redo your white balance setting.
——-
Assuming a mixed lighting scenario...

how to maintain exposure while changing f stop

Let's assume that you're mixing natural and artificial light and are using the strobe as fill. If you go from f/4 to f/11, then your strobe must get 2^3 times more powerful to get the same amount of fill flash off the subject and into the camera.
But, also keep in mind that you've dropped your ambient capture as well. So you'll have to lengthen the shutter speed by 3 stops as well.

how to maintain white balance

Well, if you're mixing strobe and ambient, you've probably already placed a gel or filter over the strobe to balance it to your ambient. Not much should need to change. If your strobe swings so wildly at different power outputs, you may need to change filters/gels.
——
A note on the inverse square law
In both scenarios, increasing strobe power is a solution for getting correct subject exposure when decreasing your f stop. Keep in mind that this will spill more light into your background. It may be necessary to instead mess with not only the lights power but also it's placement distance from the subject.
Answer: TL;DR. Won't be exact/identical from shot to shot, but gel your flash to match the ambient, shoot RAW, and compensate for aperture changes with ISO or consider using TTL if you don't care if the ambient exposure level shifts.
The white balance is likely changing because you're getting different amounts of ambient light in, and the ambient light color doesn't match your flash's color.  This is going to be a problem for you no matter what white balance you have set in-camera. In this situation, gelling the flash to match the color of the ambient light, so a single white balance setting will still work for the image is useful. As would shooting RAW, instead of jpeg, so you can "reset" the white balance after the fact in post.
However, keep in mind that speedlights often aren't color consistent across all power settings, so changing the flash power may change its white balance. And that going over sync speed will rob you of flash power, d
Exposure-wise, if you rapidly swap aperture settings, you must also compensate with a change in ISO setting if you want to maintain the same flash/ambient exposure.
Ambient exposure is controlled by ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.
Flash exposure is controlled by ISO, aperture, flash power, and flash-to-subject distance.
So, say, -3.3EV on aperture (f/5→f/16) also means going +3.3EV (10x) on the ISO, so ISO 100→1000.  If you compensated with a combination of ISO and shutter speed (say, ISO 100→400 + shutter speed of 1/250→1/80), then the shutter speed portion (+1.3EV) also has to be compensated for by flash power (say, 1/4→1/2+1/3EV) because shutter speeds below sync speed don't affect flash exposure.
Or, if you don't care about the ambient exposure shifting with the aperture, you could just use TTL to maintain the flash exposure level through ISO and aperture changes.
Answer: If you are shooting with a TTL flash, and if you change aperture or ISO, the TTL exposure metering will recompute a different power level to give the same exposure. That is how TTL works. (Same exposure assumes if still within the capability of the power level, if the flash can still do it).
With a manual flash, you have to adjust the power level yourself, but either way, the power level changes.
But the white balance of flash units changes with power level, which seems to be your complaint.  Higher power level is greater amps of current though the flash tube, which changes ionization level of the Xenon gas, which changes spectrum somewhat. That is just how the physics is.
There are a couple of studio flash models with an internal computer that tries to balance volts and amps to maintain a relatively equal white balance with power level. But except for that couple of studio lights, the huge majority of all flash units change white balance with power level. Buying one of those couple would be the only answer to your question. The Paul C. Buff Einstein model would be the most affordable of these. Profoto has the other.
NOT intending to imply any great numerical precision here, but :
Most studio lights use lower voltage for lower power, and then very roughly perhaps 200 degrees K more red from full power to 1/32 power.
Speedlights always use full voltage, but cut off the flash duration very abruptly for low power, and then very roughly perhaps 400 degrees K more blue from full power to 1/32 power.  A few studio lights use this same method.
There is a very easy solution for white balance.  Just add a white balance card into the scene of the first test shot, and use a good white balance tool (preferably in raw software) to click the card in that test photo.  That tells the computer "this spot is neutral color, so make it be neutral color".  Neutral color means equal red, green, blue components, so no color cast. That works great, and is trivially easy, very fast, and very good.
My site has as sample of the speedlight color change, on second page at
http://www.scantips.com/lights/whitebalance.html
Answer: Call it a speed light or a strobe or electronic flash (a rose by any other name smells just as sweet). These flash units output a bright blitz, short in duration. Because the flash happens super quickly, we can create a stop-motion setup. If done correctly, we can freeze the action of athletes or even freeze hummingbird wings.
As to changing the lens aperture for different effects, under conditions of continuous light, we can freely change the shutter speed / aperture combination to get different results. When electronic flash is the principal light source, changing these combinations are limited. This is because the short flash duration confines us to use shutter speeds that allow synchronization of the shutter with the flash.
If we are not mindful to use only those shutter speeds that harmonize with the flash, we are likely to get a frame that sees the flash incompletely. We call this a synchronization error. Most cameras are very finicky and we can only use 1/125 of a second or slower. Because different shutters sync at different speeds, best you check your camera manual to see this limitation for yourself.
That being said it is not likely that you can change your aperture from f/5 to f/16 at you whim. Such a change requires a shutter speed adjustment to compensate for the change in the exposing light action. If we are working under continuous lighting then we can do this at will. With a flash as main light, other considerations are afoot.
Likely you are working under ambient light. When the shutter speed is set slow, you are allowing the flash and the ambient light to comingle and this act complicates white balance.  You flash is rich with blue and likely the ambient is rich with a rosy hue.
When flash and ambient mingle, the outcome is likely uncertain. What I am saying is, the skill to white balance under mixed lighting must be acquired by study plus a bit of luck won't hurt.


Find out current component when ECL GetItem() is called on component localisation

Question: I have noticed that when a component is localised, the GetItem(IEclUri) method is called on the ECL ProviderContext. In that method, I make a call to an external API using metadata of the current publication.
However, if that call returns nothing, I need to perform that call again but using publication metadata of the publication owning the component being localised. However, I am unable to find a way to get to this information in the ProviderContext. The method only gets passed a IEclUri, which just contains the current publication ID. But I would like to know the current component being used (localised), so that I can get to its owning publication and use its metadata. Any ideas would be welcome.
Answer: You can't get the stub component URI from within GetItem.
There are a couple of workarounds that might work depending on your situation.
Persisting the stub URL
When the stub is being created you will receive a call to IContextLibraryContext.StubComponentCreated. If you have means of storing this URI (forexample as metadata on the external system you can retrieve it as needed.
Calling a custom method on the provider.
IContextLibraryContext.GetItem is called on a lot of occasions, not just when an item is being localized. If you need something to happen on localize only you can implement a Tridion event handler executing when the item is being localized. You can then use IDispatchHandler.Dispatch to make a custom call to the provider where you include any information you want.
Both IContentLibraryContext and IContentLibraryListItem inherits from the IDispatchHandler interface, allowing you to make the Dispatch call to your provider in general, or to a specific item.


What are the signs indicating onset of wisdom because of meditation practice?

Question: One of the benefits of the meditation practice that is widely talked about is becoming more wise. I am not sure if there is a universal definition of wisdom so I am trying to see what wisdom other practitioners here have "realized" during the course of their practice. How did you realize you were becoming more wise and what exactly is this wisdom if you are able to convey it in writing?
Comment: One would think that stopping looking for these signs would be a sure sign.
Comment: @BolucPapuccuoglu Exactly. The reason being that one is not able to judge one's own wisdom. Of course it needs wisdom to recognize that. At which state one would also humbly and politely reject *other people's* judgement -- at least the flattering ones -- because others are in an even worse position to judge one's wisdom...
Answer: Traditionally it is described as "discernment". In simple words, you don't lump everything in black and white categories anymore, you see nuances. Your answers become much more "it depends" than before.
That's one sign. Another one is how you act. Previously, you acted out your frustration or disagreement as-is. Now you see: what's the point of getting angry if it won't improve things. You get more rational and less swayed by emotions, because you can see further down the road.
Another improvement is the expanded scope of your awareness. Previously you were aware of one topic you were thinking or talking about. Now you are effortlessly aware of a hundred other things and factors. You have a rich context and perspective on things. You effortlessly see "whereas", "therefore", and "on the other hand" of things.
The expanded scope of awareness allows you to no longer get stuck in a single interpretation. You don't get stuck in a negative picture of the world (or any other limited perspective). In Buddhist terms, you don't get stuck in a single world.
Comment: When reading the title I was thinking of a flippant answer along the way "when you have it you'll know" (which seems to be kind of a cop-out you see in this or similar form often). But your points are not only very well put, but actually match my experience. "Wisdom" does not mean that one becomes an all-knowing quantum scientist through meditation, but the effects you describe is what could be seen as the very definition of what the "symptoms" of being a wise person look like. Very well answered.
Answer: With wisdom there will be less suffering:

AN5.136:3.7: They're wise. They have the wisdom of arising and passing away which is noble, penetrative, and leads to the complete ending of suffering.

Please note the "arising and passing" phrase. Suffering arises when there is clinging to what must pass. Although universal, suffering (and therefore wisdom) will arise individually according to the nature of that individual suffering.
For example, the urge to steal may arise, and one may mistakenly identify with that urge to ill effect. But that urge will also pass on its own. So it can be endured and relinquished. The wise avoid stealing. But the unwise do not.
In general, suffering is entangled with the limits of greed, hate and delusion. Right wisdom relinquishes those limits in a certain way:

SN35.72:5.1: "Good, mendicant! And regarding the eye, you will truly see clearly with right wisdom that: 'This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.'

So wisdom grows in the individual according to how that individual relinquishes craving. Empty of craving, wisdom then becomes universal.
Answer: You may find it helpful to refer to Visuddhiñana-katha/The Progress of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw, which explains the signs that a meditator recevies from a Theravadin perspective. It's fairly comprehensive.
Personally, if I were to summarize it, you will reach a stage where you have a very deep understanding that nothing your mind craves in the outside world can ever be satisfactory because of annica/impermanence. This leads to a natural loss of desire for chasing things in the material world because they cannot bring lasting joy & a withdrawal of the senses inward. You'll also likely find yourself sticking to the precepts much more easily because you understand how breaking them creates the conditions for continued suffering. Like a child who sticks his hand in the fire for the first time and learns that fire burns; you won't want to engage in certain vices anymore. And then a bunch of other signs also, which is explained in far greater detail in the text I mentioned.
Answer: I think wisdom refers to insight into/ experience of

suffering, it's causes and how to be free of it
interdependence
impermanence
emptiness
non-conceptuality
no inherently existing separate self

and how to live a meaningful life according to it that benefits and liberates you and other beings.
Some features I experience(d) in meditation (shamatha awareness of awareness) and life that point into this direction (although it's hard to put into words and I might be wrong about thinking that it points towards wisdom, I'm not a professional):

thoughts, emotions and so on just arise and pass in my mind, often I can just watch them without getting entangled with them, without seeing them as meaningful, permanent or "mine" and without an immediate urge to act on them.
pain (especially mental/emotional one) arises and passes, but it's not neccessary and inevitable to suffer from it. Awareness seems indestructible and there's always joy and equanimity that can be accessed in deep meditation.
I'm not as attached to entities of the world anymore. I don't need them to find happiness or peace, since these are in awareness itself. Events in the world arise, pass and repeat themselves anyway, I'm kind of not that interested in them anymore (except if it causes suffering to others).
'Love' (or rather loving kindness) and happiness due to it come from inside me unconditionally, not from others being nice to me or attached to me.
Happiness is happiness and suffering is suffering, no matter in which being they arise. I just don't want anyone to suffer, but to be happy instead, no matter their relationship to "me".
I don't really feel like having a real, permanent and separate self: Mental events rise and pass without being mine or controlled by "me", I don't feel that much like having permanent character traits, I don't feel very connected to my past or possible future, "my" body feels like an arbitrary vessel of conciousness, in deep meditation I feel like an abstract, spacious awareness (which is peaceful, vivid and benevolent). (although I have to admit that this feeling/attitude is also kind of strange and especially when talking about it, it feels/sounds a bit like a personality disorder)
Often it's not neccessary and not helpful to put labels onto entities or beings, to put them into categories and judge them accordingly.
Answer: Becoming wise means having much understanding of essentials and thus exceptional foresight to avoid trouble.
One's behavior changes more or less gradually but changes are discernable immediately due to the kind of thoughts associated with knowledge.
Answer: For me, when I meditate regularly I'm not as easily hijacked by my emotions; I inhabit a calm place. While wisdom is a subjective term, operating from a calm center feels like a wise thing to do because I can observe what's happening around me without getting caught up in it.


Rasterize line shapefile

Question: I'm trying to convert a line shapefile to a raster image at QGis, but my attempts have been unsuccessful. I've tried to use Raster/Conversion/Rasterize and SAGA/Grid - gridding/Shapes to  grid, but to no avail. Is there any other way to accomplish this?
Comment: Can you eleborate more, are you getting an error?  Is it creating an raster, but it does not look right?  What version of QGIS are you using?
Comment: I'm using qgis 2.4, and rasterize generates a blank raster (all cells with 0).
Shapes to grid returns an error when creating the file (at the desktop, so it isn't a question of permissions)
Comment: Another idea: check spatial references and projections of your data. ^shrug^
Answer: GDAL Rasterize is a tool that might be of use. Here's another link showing GDAL Rasterize combined with Python and the resulting output.
From GDAL Rasterize Help:

The following would burn all "class A" buildings into the output
  elevation file, pulling the top elevation from the ROOF_H attribute.

gdal_rasterize -a ROOF_H -where 'class="A"' -l footprints footprints.shp city_dem.tif

Answer: I bet that it ain't black but it just looks like black.
This is how the default screen looks like

There are couple of issues here. The first one is that user must select an attribute field even it may not contain any reasonable values to be burned into the raster. The other trouble is that user cannot select output format and options for it. The first issue (if it is an issue) can be avoided by editing the request by hand and use a fixed burn value http://gdal.org/gdal_rasterize.html. The edited request for burning value "200" into the target raster would look like
gdal_rasterize -burn 200 -ts 3000 3000 -l line C:\temp\line.shp C:/temp/line2raster.tif

The effect of using default outputformat gets clear by running gdalinfo for the result:
C:\temp\>gdalinfo line2raster.tif Driver: GTiff/GeoTIFF .... Band 1 Block=3000x1 Type=Float64, ColorInterp=Gray   Min=0.000 Max=180.000   Minimum=0.000, Maximum=200.000, Mean=0.731, StdDev=11.447   Metadata:
    STATISTICS_MAXIMUM=200
    STATISTICS_MEAN=0.73090909090909
    STATISTICS_MINIMUM=0
    STATISTICS_STDDEV=11.446807776165

Oh dear, gdal_rasterize is using type Float64 as default and we burned lines with value 200 which is very close to totally black with this scale. For making the line visible we must adjust QGIS to render the image according to the histogram.

Stretch rendering to min-max and lines will show. However, what you probably want to do is to create an 8-bit tiff instead of Float64 and that can be done by editing the gdal_rasterize command further by adding "-ot byte" parameter. Final command row would look like
gdal_rasterize -burn 200 -ts 3000 3000 -ot byte -l line C:\temp\line.shp C:/temp/line2raster.tif

I would create QGIS feature request: Let user to select burn value and output data type manually. Float64 is a bad default for most users.
Answer: Working on QGis version 2.8.2-Wien I mannaged to rasterize a line shapefile using the Treatment > Toolbox > GDAL/OGR > Conversion > Rasterize (vector to raster) script. My GDAL/OGR version is 1.11.2.
Parameters input was quite strait-forward and it returned me a GeoTIFF image. You can choose the number of bite, format,... The code is also generated and you can reuse in a GDAL/OGR console (but I don't really know how).
Answer: Using QGIS:
First create a raster file from the line shapefile (using an adhoc constant attribute).
Then use Raster/Analysis/Proximity tool to convert the raster file to proximity raster file.

Rasterize line shapefile


original document about the patent US532942 (Charles Bivort et Jean Nadler)

Question: for an exhibition in Luxembourg, I am searching for an original document about the patent US532942 (Charles Bivort et Jean Nadler). How and where can I find this document?
Answer: You can go to https://worldwide.espacenet.com/?locale=en_EP and enter the patent number in the Smart Search tab.It will retrive you the result (there is no title dispayed, probably because this is an old patent). Click on the result and then you can retrieve the pdf as the "original document".
Espacenet has a large collections of patent documents, from europe (EP and national pantens), USA, Korea, Japan, China, Australia, Canada and many more.


How to securely/permanently delete sensitive information on a Galaxy S5?

Question: My S5's screen died about a week ago and as a result the phone will be getting swapped. It has some pretty sensitive information on it (such as numbers, credit card info, photos, etc.) that I want to get rid of:permanently. Lately I've been overwriting the internal memory using "dd if=/dev/urandom of=/sdcard/junkfile" in ADB and was wondering if this would be enough to make sure my data is gone for good. I've also wiped it about 5 times.
Answer: You've done great so far. Now, write junk files again and encrypt the device over ADB Shell:
<code>/system/bin/vdc cryptfs enablecrypto inplace PASSWORD</code>
(Your device may need to be rooted for this)
Now, feel free to wipe.
Comment: And for full paranoia-mode, write the junk file again after that :)
Comment: Repeat 3 times.  :p


What do the dots and lines underneath these chords mean?

Question:
The piece is called "Cello Melody"
Answer: This is called a portato marking.
In your example, the portato is notated with staccato markings (the dots) along with tenuto markings (the dashes). In addition to this notation, you'll also occasionally find portato notated as staccato notes within a larger slur (instead of including the tenuto markings).
For strings, it indicates a slight articulation of each note while still being within a single bow stroke. For other instruments, it's often described as a "pulsing" articulation. I recommend imagining yourself as a string player, and really envisioning what it would be like to play the notes with a single stroke while still adding in a slight articulation for each.
Further reading is available on the Wikipedia page for portato.
Comment: You say portato...  :o)
Comment: I'm sorry, but I find your descripion of how to play it on piano very confusing
Comment: I wonder if a quote from [this page](http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1218728/re-how-to-play-portato.html#Post1218728) might be helpful: "In a staccato, your finger comes up faster than the key; in a portato, you're controlling the length of the tone, which is separating one tone from the next. I tell my students to think of a "sticky staccato". Non-legato is another term."
Comment: @klippy : Where does this answer mention playing it on piano?
Comment: [Today the piano is generally considered to be both a stringed and a percussion instrument.](https://www.britannica.com/story/is-the-piano-a-percussion-or-a-stringed-instrument)  Pretty sure it was an attempt at humor saying it's hard to see using a bow to play a piano.
Answer: Somewhat of  contradiction in terms, seemingly!
Staccato (the dot) meaning to be played fairly short - around half the shown length - while the line means hold the note for at least its full duration!
That said, in string playing, there's slight separation of the notes - even more confounding - but I guess this isn't for string playing, even given the 'Cello melody' title, as three simultaneous note playing is rare there. However, on stringed instruments, it is played making the melody line with the same bow direction, with a slight gap between each note. Not particularly applicable here, with triads on piano.
Named - loure.
Comment: Yeah, it's clearly a piano score, given the fingering marks.  I'm guessing it's just called "Cello Melody" because it mostly uses lower pitched notes than the typical piano piece.  There's a Chopin Etude that's sometimes called the "Cello Etude" because the melody is in a lower register.


Why semantics can't be the input to syntax

Question: so I have a Syntax II final Friday and am really confused about one of the study guide questions: "Why can't semantics be the input to Syntax? Illustrate with examples". Could anyone please shed some light on this, or direct me to a source? Thanks!
Comment: What I think they mean is that many syntactic rules ignore semantic impossibilities, such that you can make a syntactically legitimate sentence even while violating semantic rules, like Chomsky's *[colourless green ideas sleep furiously](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously)*. // Note, however, that semantic rules do have some influence on *some* syntactic rules, such as when determining whether to use *it* or *he* or *she* to refer back to a noun in an earlier clause: *London/Lauren is beautiful; you would like it/her.*
Comment: Thanks, Cerberus! Anyone else have any other suggestions or places where I could go to get more information?
Answer: I find "semantics is the input to syntax" to be rather obscure in meaning, but perhaps it means that everything about the syntax of a phrase can be predicted from the semantics of that phrase.  If so, all you need to do to show the thesis is false is to give some fact about the syntax of a phrase which is due to its meaning rather than tradition.  That sounds pretty easy.  Can you you predict whether a language has prepositions or postpositions from the meaning of pre-/post-positional phrases, for instance?
Answer:
"Why can't semantics be the input to Syntax? Illustrate with
  examples".

Since the question is about "the input", I suppose the meaning is "the only input". Take e.g. word order. It's a syntactic phenomenon, and if semantics were the only input, there would be no reason to wind up will all possible permutations of {S,V,O} in the world's languages (as it is widely agreed upon that semantics is universal). The very existence of the permutations is a witness of some other factors besides semantics contributing to syntax. The permutations are contingent on something but if they were contingent only on semantics, word order would be the same in all languages
Comment: I don't follow this argument. Word order is the result of a language-specific essentially arbitrary rule sawing that in English, the verb is between the subject and object; in Arabic, the verb is before the subject and object; and so on. The question is not "can all of syntax be performed using only semantic properties", the question is about the "base". Syntax can use the semantic input to create non-semantic structural properties.
Comment: @user6726 I'm not sure whether the question is about "the main input" or "the only input" but "the input" suggests the latter interpretation. Furthermore, if it's about "the main input", then it's too vague and probably not worth answering ("the main" in what sense or for whom? quantitatively? how do you quantify this? and if semantics is not "the main input", then what is?)
Answer: "Everyone in the room knows at least two languages" is a sentence that is true in two quite different situations, one where everyone knows two languages, say English and French, and the other where for anyone you take you get two, possibly quite different languages, so for Jane you get French and Dutch, for John you get Dutch and German, for Peter you get Swahili and Malay and for Didi you get Greek and Arabic... This is sorted out in linguistic theory by disambiguating the phrase quoted in the beginning syntactically, so that for the first situation the DP " at least two languages" precedes and commands the subject DP "everyone" and for the other reading, the two DPs are in the order in which they appear at surface. Syntax must hence disambiguate scope before semantic interpretation can get started.


Can a satellite stay in one place but not above equator?

Question: I know that there are geostationary satellites that are always seen in one place in the sky and that they all are located in the equatorial area. I wonder if it's possible for a satellite to "hang" still, for example, above Moscow (55.7558° N, 37.6173° E)?
Comment: I'm voting to close this question because it's more suitable for the space exploration stackexchange.
Comment: Thanks, I didn't know there is one
Answer: To add to @Planetmaker's concise yet complete answer:
In order to keep at least one satellite in the sky over Russia (or any other high N or S latitude area) at all times, the Molniya orbit was invented.
 source
It is not stationary or even synchronous, but with a period of exactly 1/2 sidereal day it is repeat-ground track. It will appear to linger for about 8 of it's ~12 hour orbit well above the horizon for one region centered around 63.4° degrees north or south.
Twelve hours later it will do the same for an area 180 degrees offset in longitude, so you need three of them to make a Molniya constellation.
Because they are not synchronous, they slowly but continuously move across the sky, so a dish antenna communicating with the constellation would have to be equipped with motors slowly but constantly moving to track one of them at a time, then jump back to the next about every 8 hours (one third of a sidereal day).
The inclination of 63.4° comes from $4 - 5 \sin^2 \theta = 0$, a term which is in the numerator of the expression for the precession of  the orbit's argument of perigee due to Earth's oblateness as expressed by $J_2$. At other inclinations the perigee would slowly precess such that the repeat ground track would drift east or west on the timescale of months.
Answer: No.
A geostationary satellite is in an orbit around the earth with a 24 hour period - in the same sense of rotation as the Earth rotates. That makes sure that its orientation with respect to the surface of Earth does not change.
If you put a satellite into another orbit which is not around the equator, it changes the latitude, thus cannot ever be geo-stationary.
A satellite moving around another, but constant latitude than the equator, is not in orbit as the center of its path is not the center of the Earth, and thus would need constant propulsion.
Comment: A (so far theoretical) device called a [statite](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite) is able to hover synchronously over any point, even a pole, but it is not in orbit. It uses a solar sail to supply thrust at all times.
Answer: Depending on your definition of satellite; maybe yes.
Only over the equator can you have a satellite in a Keplerian geostationary orbit.
This idea is covered in depth in other answers.
I would note that even these satellites are not totally without means of propulsion.
They need to be able to generate thrust occasionally to make corrections to their orbit.
However, if we allow for satellites that are in non-Keplerian orbits, there are pole-sitters.
A pole sitter remains stationary above the pole of a planet.
This is achieved by a combination of thrust, and often being much higher up than ordinary satellites.
Being higher up means having less gravity to counter, although eventually
there are other issues with not drifting out of place.
These is also often a compromise between height, and being able to make good observations - pole-sitters are normally used to observe the polar caps.
There are some cool suggestions to use solar sails to keep pole-sitters in place; https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/1.G003952
Answer: A satellite has a centrifugal force* radially away from the center of its curvature. If the orbit is in a plane that does not go through the center of mass of the Earth, then the centrifugal force will be at an angle to the ray going from the satellite and the center of mass of the Earth. Since gravity acts only through this ray, gravity can't completely cancel out the centrifugal force, and there will be a force perpendicular to this ray. So there's no way to orbit a non-zero latitude without a force pushing towards another latitude.
*Yes, the centrifugal force is a pseudoforce, but that doesn't affect this argument.


Is it possible to prove that a game(ex. chess or othello...) will eventually halt at some point.

Question: Is it possible to prove that a game(ex. chess or othello...) is solvable and will eventually halt at some point. I wonder as the halting problem is undecidable, will it be possible to prove that a particular game will end after a finite number of moves
Comment: This site is for **research-level questions** in **theoretical
computer science**, that are likely to have short well-defined
answers. "Research-level" means, roughly, questions that might be discussed between two professors, or between graduate students working on Ph.D.'s, but not usually between a professor and the typical undergraduate student. It does not include questions at the level of difficulty of typical undergraduate homework/textbook exercises. You may want to try
[Math.SE](http://math.stackexchange.com).
Answer: You can make games that will halt and those that won't.  Othello will always halt because it cannot continue for more than 60 moves based on the rules.  Chess ends only because there are rules to prevent infinite-move games (repetition rule, 50-move rule, etc).  You can certainly construct games that never end... a silly example is "whoever names the highest integer wins".
Then there are games that lead to a paradox when you try and ask if they will end or not.  A famous example is the game called CHOICE.  The first move of CHOICE is to choose a game that does eventually end.  The 2nd move of CHOICE is to play the first move of the chosen game, etc.
Now we ask, "does CHOICE end or not?"  If you say it does, then the first move of CHOICE could be to choose CHOICE, and continuing this way leads to a never-ending game.  So suppose we say CHOICE does not end, thereby disqualifying it as a possibility for the first move.  Then clearly it DOES end.
Comment: For instance is it possible to show that the tile game will halt. (i.e 15 of the 16 positions in a 4*4 matrix are filled by tiles, leaving one unfilled hole. Tiles adjoining the hole can be shifted into the hole, the object being to form some particular permutation of the tiles (typically forming a picture out of fragments printed on the tiles). There are certainly many combinations involved here and only one combination is the halting state
Comment: @Harry: it will depend on the rules of such a game.  If you invoke a rule saying that repeating a pattern ends the game, then yes, it will halt.  This is because there are a finite number of configurations.  To know whether a winning state is reachable, we could just use DFS.  To know the shortest sequence of moves to a win, use BFS.  To make your question more interesting, you could parameterize to an $n \times n$ matrix and make it a two-player game.  Then under most "natural" rulesets the game will be PSPACE-Complete, but still solvable.


Is address reuse cryptographically secure in Tezos?

Question: From my understanding with cryptos like bitcoin, address reuse is discouraged because it makes the funds on the address more vulnerable to being compromised. Is Tezos the same way or is it okay to perpetually reuse the same address. If so, why/how is Tezos different?
Answer: I'm not a cryptographic expert but, the issues that you mentioned in Bitcoin involved weak signatures (same K value bug), which when used multiple times enabled the guessing of the private key. This has now been fixed.
There is still a case for advocating against address re-use, especially for addresses used for long term storage of large amounts of value: quantum computing. It's still early days, and there's no indication of any imminent threat to current cryptographic schemes. However a Tezos address that remains unrevealed (i.e. full public key not made public) should in theory be harder to crack than one that has been revealed.
Answer: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address_reuse
The biggest reasoning why not to re-use an address is for 'connecting the dots' and identifying who an address belongs to. If you're ok with that, reuse the same address as long as you like.
In Tezos, 2 key actions are locked to an address, so switching is difficult. A baker will always use the same key because their baking rights, and rewards, are tied to the address the register. If a bakery needs to switch address, they must convince all of their delegators to switch as well. No guarantee they will switch.
On the same line, when you delegate to a baker, the delegation is tied to that address and your rewards are, generally, sent to that same address. It is much easier to switch addresses as a delegator; you can simply empty the contents from address A to address B and then delegate B.
This is very comparable to bitcoin as when you join a mining pool, you specify a single address to receive rewards.
Comment: From my understanding it is at least technically the case that with Bitcoin, address reuse allows for a security risk in that if ECDSA is compromised, the coins stored at that address are at risk.

Is this not the case with Tezos? If so, why not? How is it different?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139381.0     (see comment #10)
Comment: Well, yea, if ECDSA is compromised, then things are vulnerable, as with anything crypto. Tezos can also use EdDSA, so I'd go look that one up.


What is the difference between get_page_link and get_permalink functions?

Question: Both functions return permalink to the post or page by it's ID. What are the differences and which of these functions should I use in which cases?
Answer: When i explored the WordPress core for this answer i found that get_permalink() function internally calls get_page_link() function for getting permalink of page and it calls get_post_permalink() function to get permalink of post.
Therefore either you use get_permalink() function or get_page_link() function, you will get same result.
The difference between these two is get_page_link() function handles page_on_front page set in back end whereas get_post_permalink() function do not consider it.
Comment: I just discovered that the result is not exactly the same, because get_page_link returns "page_id=XX", while get_permalink returns nice url like "page/subpage".
Comment: @RobertZelník ok. Can you tell me what's your permalink structure?
Comment: It is strange but I can not reproduce the issue anymore. Something has probably changed and now both get_page_link and get_permalink return "page_id=XX".
Answer: In my opinion get_page_link is for displaying the link and get_permalink is not for displaying the link.
WordPress Codex says: get_permalink: It does NOT display the permalink.
Comment: This is a common property of all functions starting with "get_" - both get_page_link and get_permalink do not display anything, they just return a value. If we want to display the result, we can add .