In Matthew 26:38 what does "even unto death" mean?

Question:
KJV Matthew 26:38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding
  sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
MGNT Matthew 26:38  τότε λέγει αὐτοῖς περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου ἕως
  θανάτου μείνατε ὧδε καὶ γρηγορεῖτε μετ' ἐμοῦ
Comment: Do you believe that there is something more than being so sad that the (current and anticipatory) sorrow is crushing and Jesus needs human company?
Comment: I can think of more than one way to take the phrase so I'm looking forward to hearing the case for and against how others take it: https://biblehub.com/matthew/26-38.htm He has already said he is "exceedingly sorrowful". What I want to know is what he means by "even unto death" which is ambiguous to me.
Comment: It means that we can die from grief... and that sorrow can kill a man.
Answer: The phrase "ἕως θανάτου" only occurs in Matt 26:38 and Mark 14:38 in the NT.  It might be an allusion (including the reference to "soul") to Isa 53:12, "poured out his soul unto death".
BDAG specifically lists Matt 26:38 and Mark 14:38 as their first meaning, "termination of physical life, death - (a) natural death".  They then list their translation of these verses as, "sorrowful even to the point of death".
While this phrase, "ἕως θανάτου" only occurs twice, very similar phrases with very similar meanings also occur in the NT.

Phil 2:8 - [Christ was] obedient unto death ("mechri thanatou")
Phil 2:30 - [Epaphroditus came close] unto death ("mechri thanatou")

The opposite of this idea is also discussed in John 5:24 where Jesus talks about proceeding out of death to life as a result of His work and message, by faith.  However, this is almost certainly talking about eternal death (Rom 1:32, 6:16 etc) as distinct from physical death.
This, our passage in Matt 26:38 and Mark 14:38 suggests that Jesus' was so crushed that he almost died in the Gethsemane before proceeding to Golgotha.  This is discussed at some length in Isa 53 (which I take as a Messianic chapter) with statements like, "he … carried our sorrows" (v4); "he was crushed for our iniquities" (v5); "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (v6); "he was oppressed and afflicted" (v7); "it was the LORD's will to crush him" (v10); etc.
From this I take the Gospel record to mean that Jesus bore all our sins and almost died in the garden.  He was thus "despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows" (Isa 53:3).  This was dramatically fulfilled in Gethsemane.  As bad as Jesus suffering on Golgotha was we should not forget the struggle in the garden as he decided to drink the cup (Matt 26:36-43).
Comment: Are you suggesting that Jesus' struggle to accept his death was almost fatal? IE: The anguish of his mind was causing his body to self destruct?
Comment: I think that is a good summary.  It also appears that when Jesus became "sin for us" (2 Cor 5:21) that this created a separation from the Father and caused Him to scream, "My God why have you forsaken me?" and darkens was over the land. etc.  Jesus found all this very difficult in anticipation.
Comment: I could imagine someone with a weak heart succumbing but apart from that I don't think it is physically possible.
Comment: Suggest you look at  https://back2healthsc.com/how-your-emotions-can-manifest-as-physical-pain/  https://www.psychguides.com/guides/grief-symptoms-causes-and-effects/  etc.  Jesus grief/anguish was rather extreme!!
Comment: Are we talking here about "sorrow" in the sense of sadness or "sorrow" in the sense of remorse?
Answer: Haven't you ever been in a situation so bad, so painful, so uncertain, so unpredictable, so heavy, so helpless, so lost and confused because you don't understand why and it just doesn't stop or go away? And you know God is there right before you and it seems like He don't care when in your soul you know He does and can make it all right and perfect, what I'm saying is, He can fix it. and the hurt, pain and confusion can all go away and yes with just a simple smile.  But He doesn't at that moment your heart cry's out and say just kill me, just take me out of here because it's to much, to heavy remember Lord, I'm just a man, that's it, just a man. Remember He was all human and all God. Experience is the only way one can truly say, I understand what your going through or what you truly mean. Could it be He was expressing a SINCERE moment not that it would have ever happened. His Father knew as well as Him He had a destiny THE CROSS. And I had mine, but glory be to God and that He is God and not I, and doesn't always give us what we think we want. "SINCERE moments," come and go but His great and awesome wonderful plan for His children are greater and more beautiful than a sincere moment. Thank You Jesus
Answer: Jesus was victorious until this point of remaining without sin. Clearly, and understandably, it was getting more difficult to stay the path.
He wasn't worried as much about the cross (although that was very heavy on his heart) but about finishing without letting his will precede the Father's in ANY way due to the horrific moments just ahead.
Should he have let slip just once, he would not be raised from the dead and the whole mission would have been pointless!
He was struggling with sorrow, grief and a broken heart and all other manner of testing - needing God's help through the spirit more than ever to remain true to the cause and finish this! Victoriously!
It's clear that this testing time is what Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews) had in mind when he penned these words,

Heb 5:7 He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying
and tears to the One able to save Him from death

His advice to the disciples was to pray against temptation, Jesus was having the same issue - wanting that the cup not be given to him. He wanted them to pray with him, lest he succumb at this late stage of a life of trial and testing.
Answer: I posted the original question a long time ago, and I have received some thoughtful answers. However, having looked at the issue since then I think that, like all of the translators and commentators, there seems to be a common error, possibly because because being "led into the ditch" by the KJV translation.
The key to understanding the passage appears to me to be the meaning of these two words:

περίλυπος, translated "crushed" in the KJV which is actually not a physical crushing at all but rather matter of being "deeply sad" or one might say "depressed". So to my mind the idea of any physical danger is off the table

ἕως, translated "to the point of" which again, I believe to be misleading. The word is actually a preposition that refers to time, as in "until"

If I'm correct in my understanding of these words then Jesus is saying that "my heart is depressed until [my] death". In other words, his grief will not go away until he dies.
It may be that we are to sense Jesus' excitement and gladness when he sees the crowd of men arriving with swords and clubs knowing that his prayer for a speedy death appears to be occurring:

Mat 26:44-50 NLT - So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, "Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look--the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let's be going. Look, my betrayer is here!" And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: "You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss." So Judas came straight to Jesus. "Greetings, Rabbi!" he exclaimed and gave him the kiss. Jesus said, "My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for." Then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him.

Later, as his death lasted for hours, he prays again:

Psa 22:1 NKJV - To the Chief Musician. Set to "The Deer of the Dawn." A Psalm of David. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? [Why are You so] far from helping Me, [And from] the words of My groaning?

IE: "Why am I still not dead?"
But his prayer was almost immediately answered as his death came at a seemingly miraculous pace, despite his physical strength to breathe:

Mat 27:46-50 NKJV - And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Some of those who stood there, when they heard [that], said, "This Man is calling for Elijah!" Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled [it] with sour wine and put [it] on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink. The rest said, "Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him." And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit [IE: "breath" - he died].

Apparently some misheard him thinking the was calling for Elijah but he was actually calling for his God to save him, which he did, through death (and resurrection) without further delay:

Psa 22:1-31 NKJV - To the Chief Musician. Set to "The Deer of the Dawn." A Psalm of David. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? [Why are You so] far from helping Me, [And from] the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent. But You [are] holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed. But I [am] a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, [saying], "He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!" But You [are] He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust [while] on My mother's breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother's womb You [have been] My God. Be not far from Me, For trouble [is] near; For [there is] none to help. Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong [bulls] of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me [with] their mouths, [Like] a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look [and] stare at Me. They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots. But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! Deliver Me from the sword, My precious [life] from the power of the dog. Save Me from the lion's mouth And from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me. I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard. My praise [shall be] of You in the great assembly; I will pay My vows before those who fear Him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever! All the ends of the world Shall remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations Shall worship before You. For the kingdom [is] the LORD's, And He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth Shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust Shall bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep himself alive. A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the [next] generation, They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, That He has done [this].

Later, Pilate marveled that he was dead so quickly:

Mar 15:44 NKJV - Pilate marveled that He was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him if He had been dead for some time.


How to mirror image hard drive

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
Imaging new hard drive in Windows 7 laptop?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but where else to turn?  I want a way to make a mirror image of a hard drive, bit-for-bit, that has exactly the same data.  Ideally, it would be free.
Comment: It depends.  What do you want it for? Realtime? Backup?
Comment: I know what you're talking about, but usually people refer to that simply as "mirroring" or "imaging" (or "cloning") a HD. "Mirror image," to me, indicates that you want all of the bits in reverse order on the target. ;-)
Answer: Clonezilla can do what you're looking for.  It has the ability to clone hard disks.
Answer: DriveImage XML (free) can make raw copies of partitions.
If you want a real-time copy, you can create a RAID 1 (mirroring) array.
Answer: If you have a computer with linux on it, you can use dd to clone your drive.
Answer: If you just want to copy the contents of an NTFS filesystem, attributes and all, you can just use robocopy.
Comment: This is good enough
Answer: To answer your question exactly, you need to explain the reason you need a "bit for bit" copy.  There are many programs like Clonezilla, DriveImageXML, and paid programs like Norton Ghost and TrueImage which can take the data which appears to be actively in use and clone or copy them to another hard drive.  Note that these will not normally copy deleted data or data in sectors that don't appear to be in use.  Depending on what the original drive looks like versus the new drive, it will remake partitions and while the new drive will run, it will NOT be an exact copy.
If you need a forensically exact copy for legal purposes - say you want to image a drive of a person who you suspect may have done something illegal - then you will need to use a forensics program - I believe that there is one which is open source, but most are paid programs.  These will create true exact copies with every bit copied whether active files or slack space, deleted space....

How to mirror image hard drive


Is there a difference between Top Tier and Second Tier graduate programs in Mathematics regarding tenure track?

Question: I am unaware if this question has been asked anywhere on StackExchange before. However, I would like to know what is the major difference between a top 6 and a top 10 graduate school in Mathematics. Forex: Top 6 would include Princeton, Harvard etc. Top 10 would have a few more like Michigan or Columbia etc.
I know that it depends a lot upon quality of theses and advisor. But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton? Looking at the faculty of top schools this rarely happens. Usually, everyone at Princeton received their doctorates from Princeton itself or maybe Harvard. Harvard/MIT also have the same situation. So is it really difficult for a Michigan(or any top 10 school) graduate to get a tenure-track job at a very prestigious school like Princeton ?.
Comment: What you could consider is that most of the teachers who do a good job in teaching many thousands of students don't have a PhD, and have not attended Ivy League institutions. What they do have is a passion about what they do and an attitude that the students respect. Many teachers find that students surpass them and are pleased for them.
Comment: "But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton?": Indeed they can ;-)
Comment: @SolarMike, +1 for the last comment. If students didn't surpass their professors pretty often we would be on a downward slope to extinction. It is the most joyous moment of all, just as it is for a parent.
Answer: I don't think you have gone very deep into rankings. Certainly not deep enough to suggest any relationship meaningful for individuals. I've never heard anyone scoff at a PhD from University of Michigan. You are suggesting that the top graduate from some place is invariably less skilled than the worst graduate from some other essentially similar place. That doesn't happen in the real world.
But if your life goal is to be a tenured professor at one of the top six schools in the US, prepare for disappointment, no matter where you study or how good you are. The problem is that the total number of open positions at such schools in any given year is minuscule and the competition for those few positions is huge.
But you should also think about the following in choosing a graduate school, if that is why you ask. Many top (and other) schools don't like to hire their own graduates. It certainly isn't that they doubt the quality, of course. But they like to bring in people who may have fresh ideas, not having studied with the current faculty and been exposed for many years with their ideas primarily. This has less effect now than it once did as it is easier to collaborate across distance and even internationally because of the internet and cheaper travel.
But some schools do permit hiring their own, and many students prefer to stay around a place where they are comfortable, so such places can collect a faculty made up of their own graduates. But, even in these, I'll guess that a lot of those "from here" people went out into the bigger world and made their reputation there before returning "home."
On the other hand, there are some incredibly fine mathematicians at quite small and out of the rankings places who simply want to live and work in a "home" environment of a different kind. Princeton isn't, actually, the finest place in the US to actually live. Too many cars, too many deer ticks.
But there is more to life than the quality of the institution you attend or the institution you work for. Lots more.
Comment: This is quite a good answer (+1).  However, a comment: "Many top (and other) schools don't like to hire their own graduates."  I've heard this for more than 20 years (going back to my undergraduate days).  But after a similarly long period of observing who hires whom at college and university math departments: I am not aware of a school that hires its own graduates at less than the statistically expected rate, and I am aware of many schools that hire their own graduates at more than the expected rate.  I think the OP is correct that Princeton is such a school.
Comment: @PeteL.Clark, I don't know of any research on the topic for math. My "observing" is just personal, not statistical. But the statistics, if available would show a pretty small number, I think. Most institutions in the US operate under rules that require a national search for listed positions and make it difficult to advantage one person over another. Back when, I knew a post-doc who the university _really_ wanted to hire so wrote a job description with just about every detail matching his CV except his name. They got one or two applications better than he was on paper.
Comment: Amendment to my statement: "I am not aware of a school" |-> "I am not aware of an elite school."  With regard to your comment about national searches: suffice it to say that I am well aware of that and do not regard it as working against my assertion in practice.  The search committee and/or the department faculty get to decide what it means to be best, and institutions can and do make reasonable choices that result in hiring more of their own graduates.
Comment: @PeteL.Clark It appears that there is only one full professor at the University of Chicago who received their PhD from UChicago (Kenig). There are 31 full professors of mathematics (32 if you count the president of the University) which is plausibly below statistical expectation: http://math.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/
Answer:
But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton?

Yes, of course.  Consider how implausible the alternative is - that the sorting process as people applying to grad schools could actually succeed at sorting grad students so perfectly that the top 6 schools catch every top tier student and exactly those students.

Looking at the faculty of top schools this rarely happens. Usually, everyone at Princeton received their doctorates from Princeton itself or maybe Harvard. Harvard/MIT also have the same situation.

This addresses a very different question.  Only a small fraction of Princeton/Harvard/etc math PhDs go on to become professors at Princeton/Harvard/etc.
It's quite possible that the best students from Princeton/Harvard/etc are slightly better than the best students from Michigan/etc, and that the faculty at Princeton/Harvard/etc are selected mostly from that very top group.
But the range of students at the very top schools certainly has a lot of overlap with the range from the schools a small step down.
Also, even the most cursory investigation of the actual faculty lists at Princeton, Harvard, and MIT, would reveal that the premise is false - all three schools do, in fact, have faculty whose PhDs come from other schools, both schools that might be in your "top 10 but not top 6" and schools that aren't in the top 10.

So is it really difficult for a Michigan(or any top 10 school) graduate to get a tenure-track job at a very prestigious school like Princeton ?.

Yes, it is really difficult for a Michigan graduate to get a tenure-track job at a school like Princeton.  It is also really difficult for a Princeton graduate to get a tenure-track job at a school like Princeton


My thoughts on time

Question: I'm not sure if this belongs here or the physics section but I'd like to hear your opinion on this.
I've recently thought about time and what it actually is, and I'm battling between two arguments:
Everything is revolved around time and we couldn't do without it.
The other one is basically the opposite and essentially that we would do just fine without time and it is only a thing we made up for some reason.
I'm just sharing my thoughts, please respect my opinion and don't hate :)
Comment: Hi Welcome to Philosophy.SE! As asked this is an opinion question, can you rephrase it as a question of fact?
Comment: Echoing @JamesKingsbery, it shouldn't be too hard to rephrase this so that you ask for pros and cons of viewing time as real vs. illusory. You will get opinions, but they will be philosophical opinions. (Think of a professional medical opinion.) Philosophers _love_ to talk about whether some concept is illusory.
Comment: Might be interested in this question and my answer to that in particular: http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/10992/how-is-time-defined-in-modern-philosophy/11013#11013
Answer: One way of looking at this is both ways.
Early in the history of thermodynamics, folks had a hard time with the idea that all of the laws of physics were reversible, but it time seemed to have a direction anyway, only the Second Law of Thermodynamics seemed to be directional, and it was not very specific, and seemed kind of arbitrary.  This is Loschmidt's paradox.
In response, Botzmann, a major name in thermodynamics, proposed that time flows the direction it does only because we are falling away from a state of very high order (Later, we decided the reason for this state of very high order is the Big Bang, that all points in space were identical when they were all compressed into a single point, and time resulted when they began to differ.)  So if we were in a more chaotic part of the universe, time would not flow one direction, but would flow the other way for a while, until things were too orderly, and then proceed as we are accustomed.  If it oscillated often enough, we would not really get a direction to time at all.
On the other hand "for a while" makes no sense where there is no direction to time.  So there is some underlying aspect to time independent of how we might perceive it.
While our time is an artifact of the distribution of entropy, there is still some component of linear order somewhere behind it.  That linear order might not sequence things as we see them, and if time were not directional, we might perceive it as a spatial dimension instead.
That is kind of Augustine's vision of divine time, that a divine being could get outside it and see all history laid out in one big tableau.  Kant elaborated this better by saying time is just a form of our thinking, and that other beings might have ways of thinking that were not sequential.  It also fits with certain ways of looking at relativity.
So if our time is accidental, what is its purpose?  The purpose seems to be to facilitate a sense of learning and development, to simplify life so that it can address individual problems in a sequential way.
Hegel looked at this as the reason for physical existence.  That some aspect of the bigger picture is assisted by this piecemeal, separated and sequential approach, instead of the more basic time-free reality, and we are charged with working out how this fits into the bigger picture.
So we might be just fine without time, but only, in some sense, if we weren't us.
Answer: Michael Tooley has some interesting things to say about time and causation in Time, Tense, and Causation:

    Are time and causation related, and if so how? I first became seriously interested in this issue when I was developing an account of the nature of causation. The conclusions that I reached at that time were, first, that it is both possible, and desirable, to offer an account of causation that does not involve any temporal concepts, and secondly, that, given that there appear to be necessary truths that involve both causal and temporal concepts, the relevant connections between causation and time should be forged via a causal theory of the direction of time.
      The resulting picture seemed very appealing. Upon turning, however, from the question of causation to that of the nature of time—and, particularly, to the question of the choice between dynamic and static views of the world—I gradually came to feel that a full account of the relation between time and causation was not provided by a causal theory of the direction of time. The connection was, I felt, a much deeper one, and in the end I concluded, for reasons that will emerge in Chapter 4, that events can be causally related only in a dynamic world. So causation is tired not only to time, but to tense as well. (vii)

When a philosopher talks about 'tensed' vs. 'untensed' theories of time, he/she is likely talking about A-series and B-series. Now, it is important to note that these are not the only ways to think about time; indeed, of the philosophers surveyed, 58% reject both!

    To sum up, then, the difference between a static conception of the world and a dynamic one comes to this. According to a static conception, what states of affairs there are does not depend upon what time it is. Change, consequently, cannot be a matter of a change, over time, in what states of affairs exist. It must be a matter simply of the possession, by an object or by the world as a whole, of different intrinsic properties at different times.
      According to a dyadic conception of the world, by contrast, what states of affairs exist does depend upon what time it is. As a consequence, the totality of monadic states of affairs which exist as of one time, and which involve a given object, may differ from the totality that exists as of some other time, and it is precisely such a difference that constitutes change in an object, rather than merely the possession by an object of different properties at different times. Similarly, change in the world as a whole is a matter of a difference in the totality of states of affairs that exist as of different times, and not merely a matter of the possession of different properties by different temporal slices of the world.

Something I find particularly fascinating is that there is empirical science which might point toward something closer to Tooley's conception of time and causation than the major alternatives. See the 2010 article Back From the Future:

It bothered Aharonov as well. "I asked, what does God gain by playing dice?" he says. Aharonov accepted that a particle's past does not contain enough information to fully predict its fate, but he wondered, if the information is not in its past, where could it be? After all, something must regulate the particle's behavior. His answer—which seems inspired and insane in equal measure—was that we cannot perceive the information that controls the particle's present behavior because it does not yet exist. (2)

My thoughts on time


Why do kit wines age differently?

Question: Most kit wines claim they're ready to drink in a month or two.  I've found they're much better at 6 months or so.  But when making wine from grapes, it seems everyone recommends aging at least a year, if not longer.  So what do kit winemakers do to make their wine drinkable earlier?
Comment: Because fewer people would buy them if they told the truth on the label -- that all wine needs to age a year before drinking.
Comment: I think that your kit wine would be even better at 12 months. Similarly, from-scratch wines would be drinkable after 6 months. So I don't think that kit wines age faster.
Answer: Once you get to the last few bottles of a kit, maybe six months to a year after it was made, you'll kick yourself for drinking the others too early.  Wine needs time, simple answer to your question.  But as was stated earlier, its marketing, by the kit companies. I never had a kit that didnt improve with time.

Why do kit wines age differently?


How to build a ship in the latest update (01.172 STABLE) of Space Engineers?

Question: So I'm relatively new to Space Engineers but up until this point there has been a set of buttons on the bottom left of the "g" menu that allowed you to start building a ship, but today I started the game and the buttons aren't there and I can't seem to find them anywhere. I've googled the issue and couldn't find anything about this. I was wondering if someone could help me figure out how to start a ship or if I just have to start building on a landing gear that isn't locked down. I'm trying to build a small ship if that helps at all.
Answer: You can just place any block in space to start building a ship, or place it partially inside an asteroid to make it a station.
Placing landing gears as the first block has been glitchy for me, and doesn't connect to the block I place it on until I reload the world. I don't think this is intentional and might be fixed.
Answer: Not a bug. Take any block from the G menu and select it in the hotbar. You'll notice in front of you the block. You can slap it in space (where it'll drift if hit) or on an asteroid, planet or, of course, grid. Select it again while it's selected (easier done than said, NOT the other way round) to change block size.


Combining Trello boards

Question: I am ultimately responsible for multiple projects running simultaneously and could benefit from a view of multiple projects in one Trello board. My individual project managers don't need this view; the individual project managers only need to see their own project.  Is there a way to collapse boards together?
Answer: There isn't a way to collapse boards together.
There have been a lot of requests for a view that combines all your cards across all boards. There is a card for it here: https://trello.com/c/UOIrt48P
Comment: It says Shipped in July '12
Answer: in the last few years I worked a lot with Trello and always missed a view to see several lists (and their cards) of different boards (aka projects) on the same page. There are some tools, which enhance the possibilites to plan tasks on Trello, like https://placker.com for instance. Still I wanted something different.
That is why I created an Open Source solution for this use case: https://github.com/natterstefan/react-trello-multiboard.
React-Trello-Multiboard is an open source app displaying multiple cards of several Trello boards and lists. The cards and lists can be filtered by people (eg. only you or a group of people). Additionally, you can even use the app to plan ahead and display the tasks of upcoming weeks (aka "sprints").
Visit https://multiboardfortrello.com/ for more details and a live example.
Answer: Well, I just hit on this idea:
create a "Board of Boards".
I assume each project will also move through certain phases (i.e. Lists).
Each project get's a card. The card's title is the name of the project, for easy identification.
For the description: get the project specific board link (available from board menu). Use that link as the description.
Voila - with a little bit of elbow grease initially, you have a meta-board that can show you the current high level situation of your projects, with links to the relevant detail boards.
Only "blech" part is you have to open the project card to get at the board link.
Hope that helps!
Answer: Give a try to: This github repo
I wrote it in an attempt to solve this problem.
Comment: Without the link this answer has no information in it. While the app you've written very well might solve the problem, the name of the app isn't even included here which would be helpful if the link stopped working. This could be a good answer if the name of the app was given and *how* it solves the issue is described.

Combining Trello boards


How to apply Effect Strip in Video Sequence Editor

Question: Can I apply and remove an Effect Strip, for instance the Speed Control?
I mean like the modifiers, when we Apply them we also remove the controls. I want to remove the strips in the Video Sequence Editor but let the changes.
Thank you for your attention.
Answer: The command I was looking for was Make Meta Strip (Ctrl+G).


What's a waterproof substance suitable for repairing cracked rubber boots?

Question: My rubber boots are cracking where they form folds when I walk, as well as the soles attachment.
What is a generic name of a flexible and waterproof substance/product that I can use to patch/glue?
I know that specific product/brand recommendations are discouraged, but I'd like to know what type of ingredients work. eg is rubber cement flexible enough? Do silicone-based glues work for this?
Answer: For a specific product, I recommend Shoe Goo. It is designed for repairing shoes, in my experience it does work rather well. It is good for sticking them back together, and reattaching the soles if they have separated. Though maybe not so effective for repairing cracks where they are splitting.
I'm not sure if there is a generic term for Shoe Goo - according to Wikipedia, it is composed of "toluene, styrene-butadiene copolymer, and solvent naphtha". So you may be able to find something similar.
Also its probably a bit late for your boots, but rubber boots may last long if looked after. Wash them occasionally, with mild soap and water, and dry them off. Then they can be treated with rubber conditioner. This will restore the shine of the rubber, and stop them from drying out and cracking.
Answer: Rubber boots are inexpensive for a reason.  They do not last long.  They are made to be disposable.  Just go get another pair.  There just is nothing that will glue your cracks together and stay together.  I've used duct tape but forget about being waterproofed...just go get another pair.  If you are worried about throwing them away, go punch more holes in the bottom, fill with soil and grow growies in them.


Is there a source for historical shapefiles and tiles?

Question: Is there a source for historical shapefiles and tiles? Like the ancient Greece/Rome, medieval Europe and Japan? Ideally with multiple snapshots during different periods in their development, since they've gone through quite a bit of restructuring over their lifespans.
Comment: sorry they didn't have shape files back then. :)
Comment: but we do now, and we have maps from back then... I was actually very surprised that my google search revealed nothing useful in this regard.
Comment: @BradNesom both, the rasters would be nice for visual, but shapefiles are technically all I need.
Comment: My guess would be that most of the effort (=money) being spent is in the research area, which has traditionally utilized raster analysis (probably grass).  And so not much effort spent converting the data to vector.
Comment: is the tiles in your title referring to raster tiles or are you just interested in historic data as shape file and/or raster images?
Answer: Here's a couple ideas:
Japan: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/japan/
Ancient World: http://pleiades.stoa.org/
Comment: You tagged a five year old answer for this? lol
Answer: take a look at:
http://nils.weidmann.ws/projects/cshapes
Quote from the website:
"CShapes is a new dataset that provides historical maps of state boundaries and capitals in the post-World War II period. The dataset is coded according to both the Correlates of War and the Gleditsch and Ward (1999) state lists, and is therefore compatible with a great number of existing databases in the discipline. Provided in a geographic data format, CShapes can be used directly with standard GIS software, allowing a wide range of spatial computations. In addition, we supply a CShapes package for the R statistical toolkit. This package enables researchers without GIS skills to perform various useful operations on the GIS maps"
Update: Version2 of Cshapes can be found here:
https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/
Comment: @Trikelians added new link for new version2 of cshapes
Comment: This link is dead, thus not working nowadays.
Answer: Here's something for the US.
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2010.
https://www.nhgis.org
Answer: Great Britain has http://visionofbritain.org.uk/
Using Scanned Maps that have been georeferenced and combined with historical elements, census, election results and more.
Example - Ordnance Survey Unions 1803
http://visionofbritain.org.uk/iipmooviewer/iipmooviewer.html?fileName=os_unions_1803_1838_se%2FIndex_1803_1838%3DUncredited%3DOrdnance+Survey%3DUnions%3DIndex&x=27&y=91
more info on the project:
http://visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp
Answer: I don't have a link for data but this use case is extremely interesting.
coincidental post on another site.
Q: Just for the sake of curiosity Tom, what type of projects are you doing with such a powerful machine?

A: "Glad you asked. The primary use is in attempting to locate the
  precise camera location of a set of exposures taken somewhere on the
  Gettysburg battlefield one day after the battle.   The ArcObject
  program I wrote attempts to do this by matching the 2 dimensional
  horizon visible in one of the exposures with that visible from every
  10' x 10' location on the historical battlefield.   Rays are projected
  toward the horizon at every 4 degree increment.   Using a sort
  algorithm the inclination and distance to the horizon is determined.
  From this a 2-D horizon is calculated and match attempted...   The
  result is 90 10'x10' rasters with a value that reflects the likelyhood
  of matching. A total run takes just 30 days using all the processors.
  There is also a spatial model that uses 1863 Shapefile to reflect
  other elements visible in the exposures (water, slope, ground cover,
  etc.).   This model produces 90 additional raster that are combined
  with the first set...  Ultimately producing suggested camera locations
  and viewing directions; which require field trips to evaluate and
  update the models... "

Linkedin Group
Re-post from a linkedin group. Now that is digging into history!


Wiring 240v where 12/2 wire using a 20 amp circuit breaker is present

Question: I have a 20 amp breaker that is providing juice to the new outlets I installed in my basement. I would like to put a space heater in the three rooms.
The space heater allows for (1000/1500/1600W, 120/208/240V) but I am concerned that 1000/120v will not be enough. Will I have to run separate wire for 240 or can I change out the circuit breaker with a 220? Will that impact what I can use with all of the outlets that are currently wired to the 20 amp breaker?
Answer: You would need to change out all the receptacles from NEMA 5-20 or 5-15 (125V) to NEMA 6-20 or 6-15 (250V) - it is a gigantic violation and hazard to supply 240V on a 120V outlet.
As such, running a new dedicated wire for the heater (if even needed) would appear to make the most sense, as you probably don't have many things with 240V plugs to plug in.
Comment: Since the op would have to run a new feed for the heater , I think a sub panel would make more sense.
Answer: First, a habitable space requires a certain number of 120V receptacles that are mandatory. The rules vary by space, but typically you need a receptacle within 6 feet of any point along a wall (with the hypothetical 6' cord following the wall). That is because most appliances come with 6' cords.   Whatever else you do, you cannot eliminate these mandatory receptacles and they must remain 120V.
If you change voltage, you must change ALL the receptacles
You are familiar with the standard socket that's everywhere.  You must not use this socket for 240V. Not once, not ever. However there is another socket you use instead, with different keying so you can't plug the wrong thing into it.  Other than the keying, it looks and installs like a normal socket.

Converting the existing circuit to 240V would leave you without any 120V receptacles at all.  Therefore it is not a productive thing to do; you're better off adding a separate 240V circuit on a separate cable.
Cables contain multiple wires inside a single sheath.
Only 240V loads can be on 240V circuits
If you plug a 120V appliance into 240V, most likely you will get magic smoke.  Possibly quite a lot of it.  It's a thing you should not do.  However if you install the correct receptacles on the correct voltages, that won't be anything you need to worry about.
There is no way for a 240V (only) circuit to support 120V loads.
There is a hybrid circuit called a multi-wire branch circuit, but it's a specialty thing that requires a lot of care to install correctly. It should not be attempted except by the most experienced DIYers, and recent rules about GFCI and AFCI make it problematic.
Comment: Check out 210.4.c exception 2 and exhibit 210.2 , a combination load is allowed with a double pole breaker. For a appliance this used to be common and is still allowed but I haven't seen it for a while (code ref NEC 2017) . That's why I suggested a sub.
Answer: A bathroom needs a dedicated circuit so you will need some new wiring.
I would suggest installing a sub panel (depending on the location and fill of your existing panel). I would want a 50 amp sub to provide power for the bathroom, receptacles / lights and heat. You could get by with less but when putting a sub As you have found not having enough to do what you want is a bummer. If your panel is full pull the 20 amp double pole and get a 50.
6-4 wire will be need and a sub panel.
You can get a panel of a larger size and it can be a main lug only but needs to be 50 amp or larger. The ground bus must be isolated from the neutral and most main lug panels come this way, if you get a panel with a breaker the bonding screw or jumper if installed will need to be removed. This is what I would suggest and that allows for a few additional circuits in the future.  Edited I don't know where I came up with bathroom, may have mixes 2 questions. If using electric heat I would suggest cadet built in electric heat. These are inexpensive and will last longer than most space heaters, I think Harper would agree with that.
Comment: Where are you getting "bathroom" from?
Comment: Yes, right now I have a dedicated 20 amp GFCI breaker for the bathroom, 15 amp for the lighting for the main area and bedroom. but I ran a dedicated 12/2 wire from a 20 amp circuit breaker for all the outlets. Because my HVAC isn't adequate enough to add extra vents for the basement, I thought of space heaters.
Running another line from my outside panel down through an external wall and then into the basement is no small task. I will stay with what I have and just stay with the 1000w/120v option.
Comment: I thought I read bathroom and receptacles in other areas on 1 breaker.
Comment: I have a bedroom, bathroom and living/rec room. I currently wired all outlets (10) in all rooms on one 20a breaker. I have a separate 15a breaker to the bedroom but was wondering if I could share that 15a circuit with the light switch in the bathroom. I have a separate 20a wire that I am going to use on its own circuit for the GFCI outlet and the exhaust fan. I am going to use three new 20a circuits (one for each wall heater) Bedroom, Bathroom and Living/rec area.
Answer: The simple answer is if your cable is 12/2 or 14/2 (black, white, and a ground) you can't power 120v and 240v from the same wires. If you have 12/3 or 14/3 (black, red, white, and a ground) you could make it work.
To be able to operate 120v and 240v on the same "multiwire branch circuit" you need 4 wires, which is two opposing 120v hot wires, a neutral, and a ground. The two opposing 120v wires would provide the 240v for the heater, and either of those hots (or each hot separately) could be used with the neutral to provide 120v.


How do I handle errors in a children's application?

Question: I'm developing a children's learning app for preschoolers where the basic idea is that the parent hands the device to the child, and is free to then leave the room. I anticipate, of course, that the app will run as expected; however, on the off-chance something does go wrong, it will most likely affect the child's ability to learn and progress. Thus, in such an event, I may need to notify the parent as soon as possible. Some ways I have thought of to accomplish this are:
1) Have my app say "Uh-oh" or some other sound over the speakers
2) Send the parent an e-mail using the address listed in the corresponding Address Book entry.
In both cases, I would also show a message telling the parent what happened and how to fix it.
Answer: It sounds like you might have some good ideas for getting the parents' attention (though unbidden loud sounds might be a little shocking). However it seems more than likely that the parent will not get an email immediately, nor will they be in the same room to hear the sound.
Perhaps a very friendly, kid-centric message in a banner or modal (depending on how drastic the situation is) that tells the child that something went wrong and asks the child to go get their parent will be a good addition to your ideas.


Prevent video from downloading by Download Manager

Question: I am using Wowza for live streaming. When streaming is done the recorded file of streamed video is stored in content folder. I set this video as VOD. The problem is that the video is downloaded by Download manager. I want to prevent it from downloading. Is there any way in Wowza to protect content folder video from downloading?
Answer: I'm afraid this is a bit like creating a language which can only be spoken by Finnish people - as long as one application is able to download a file, every other application running in the same context will be able to download it as well. You can try to circumvent this in a myriad ways, such as detecting how the client identifies itself (easily spoofed), using a proprietary protocol (much more work for you and the end user), or even encryption built into the downloading client. However, even in the very worst case a download manager can simply emulate a user inside the client, and then you're just as far.


Why is capacitor used?

Question: I don't quite get the practical use of a capacitor. The theory is fine, but in simple words please explain how, why and where capacitors are used? Is there any other equivalent circuit for capacitors? From what I have learnt capacitors are used to store charge, but how does that make it useful in electric appliances?
Comment: @DarioP, Qmechanic added the link, not the OP.
Comment: @AlfredCentauri From now on I will always track all the edits before making a comment!
Comment: Some common "real life" example would be to rectificate alternate current to direct (with help of diodes), and for power factor correction of fluorescent tubes and engines.
Answer: Capacitors, as used in electric circuits, do not store electric charge.  When we say a capacitor is charged, we mean energy is stored in the capacitor and, in fact, energy storage is one application of capacitors.
Now, for an ideal capacitor in a circuit context, the current through is proportional to the rate of change of the voltage across:
$$i_C = C \frac{dv_C}{dt}$$
where $C$ is the capacitance of the capacitor.
Note that when the voltage across the capacitor is constant, the current through the capacitor is zero.
This property means that a series capacitor can be used to couple signals between two circuit nodes with different DC voltages.
This same property also means that a parallel capacitor can be used to decouple signals between two circuits that share a common DC voltage.
One of the simplest circuits with a capacitor is the RC circuit which has numerous uses.
When combined with a resistor and inductor, we have an RLC circuit which also has numerous uses.
The fact is that the uses of capacitors are so numerous that there is no simple answer.  You can find much more here:  Applications of Capacitors
Comment: You might consider changing that first line to "do not store _net_ electric charge" . I have always considered that they store equal and opposite charge on their plates… Just a suggestion. What do you think?
Answer: There are two main uses for capacitors.
First, the discharge of a capacitor can provide a very large, brief current. You can charge a capacitor slowly using a low-current source, such as a battery. Then you throw a switch and connect the capacitor across a low-impedance load, a near short.  All of the charge leaves the capacitor in a time of roughly $\tau = RC$, which can be quite brief.  This is how very bright camera flashes work. At the other end of the spectrum, a capacitor between a power supply's "hot" and "ground" terminals will stabilize the voltage provided by the supply, since any fluctuation in the current drawn by the circuit can come from the charge on the capacitor.
The other, more important use, is as a "resistor" whose value depends on frequency. A capacitor transmits fast signals, but blocks slow signals. You can use this to build high- and low-pass filters if you only want AC or DC signals. (The power-supply capacitor I mentioned above is an example of a low-pass filter.) You can also combine capacitors and inductors to make resonant oscillating circuits.
Answer: Think if a capacitor as a very small but very fast battery...
And in digitals etc. every time something has to be stored a huge number of capacitors is used.
Comment: Could you please elaborate!
Answer: As @Benedikt already told, you can use them as fast battery. Furthermore, you can use them in a resonant circuit, or for powering small circuits without the need of an akkumulator. You can use them in high-pass- and low-pass-filters, too, for filtering out high or low frequencies.

Why is capacitor used?


I changed rightly the permalinks but I get empty pages in the final posts

Question: I changed my permalinks to pretty ones(nameofcategory/nameofpost). The paths and the urls are perfectly formed, and I can see them when I go on the tittles, rolling over, but when I click, the final post becomes an empty page. I tried everything. Could someone help me? Most I change something in the_permalink or in single.php, or somewhere else to get effective the redirection from ugly permalinks to the pretty new ones?
Thank you in advance
Comment: What have you set the permalinks to? Can I see the format?
Answer: This is quite common problem where everyone will encounter, this sounds like there is no htaccess file in your root directory else there is no enough permission to rewrite. Make sure htaccess presence and its permission, hope this will resolve your problem.


How to import this kind of text file using matlab?

Question: the first few lines of my text file looks like this:
10/21/2010  16:34:01    360 0.7159  0.716   0.7158  0.7161  40472
10/21/2010  16:35:01    361 0.716   0.7159  0.7157  0.7161  40472        ]
10/21/2010  16:36:01    328 0.7159  0.7162  0.7158  0.7164  40472

the textfile is delimited ,but not by regular characters , is there a way I can import the data into matlab ? I tried it with import wizard , but it would not recognize the data.
Answer: You probably can't import the timestamps at the beginning of each line. If you really need the timestamps, convert them to a format where they look like regular numbers (e.g. unix timestamp).
For the rest, you can use the import wizard, set it to "Space" and set "Number of text header lines" to 0.
Answer: You can import it by using the textscan, fscanf and perhaps the strtok functions. You can certainly import these time/date marks, but it will require some work to clean up.
Answer: This code below will import your file (which looks like it is tab delimited).
fid = fopen('text.txt','r');
raw=textscan(fid,'%s\t%s\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%f');
fclose(fid)
  date = zeros(1,length(raw{1}));
for i=1:length(d{1})
   date(i) = datenum( [ raw{1}{i} ' ' raw{2}{i}] );
end

The dates will be in the date variable and the numeric data in raw{3} ... raw{8}


Where to configure my smtp server in Mutt utility

Question: I have my smtp server -- smtp.drdb.com which is registered in DNS. I need to setup Mutt utility in my RHEL 6 server. Where should I input my smtp server details in mutt.rc file so that I can send mail. When I try to send mail from mutt, it goves me error Invalid URL - smtp.drdb.com
Answer: If you use a version of mutt that is compiled with SMTP support then mutt can send mail to another server via SMTP. Otherwise it will always use the local mail server.
To use it, you have to set the smtp_urlvariable.
  smtp_url
          Type: string
          Default: ""

          Defines the SMTP smarthost where sent messages should relayed
          for delivery. This should take the form of an SMTP URL, e.g.:

          smtp[s]://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]

          where "[...]" denotes an optional part.  Setting this variable
          overrides the value of the $sendmail variable.

Comment: Where would one find the `smtp_url` - also the link is dead:( ?
Answer: Just to complement the original answer - in order to set external SMTP server you need to add following line either to /etc/Muttrc (for system-wide configuration) or ~/.muttrc (for user configuration):
set smtp_url = "smtp[s]://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]"

where host is your SMTP server, and as said in the original answer everything inside [] is optional...
Comment: example:
`set smtp_url = "smtp://gmailusername:firstname.lastname@example.com:587"`
Answer: The actual sending of mail is traditionally delegated to an external program like sendmail, mutt does not connect to SMTP directly itself. If sendmail is too much for you, you can consider using something like msmtp for a simple delivery mechanism to an SMTP server, the actual SMTP server is then configured in a simple ~/.msmtprc configuration. Consult the documentation (man msmtp).
Comment: Mutt is capable of connecting to an SMTP server.  See `smtp_url` as described in another answer.


How to reference vector based data to raster data that already has spatial reference in MAPublisher?

Question: I have been able to load in raster data into MAPublisher and properly registered it, however, I have been having trouble with a further step. I am trying to reference vector data that has no GCS or projection to the raster data's spatial information. The vector data is in pdf format, and I would like to be able to reference it and export it in an ESRI-supported format. I have been able to size the vector data to match the raster data, but every time I try to register it to the raster data, it makes it incredibly large and goes off the canvas. Is what I want to do possible?
Answer: If you've got at least one other layer to use as a reference, you can use the guide in chapter 2 of the tutorial guide, as mentioned on the Avenza forum. Similarly, someone mentions using the same approach iteratively to match up two layers on Cartotalk. You should be able to get a reasonable approximation through that approach, failing this, you'd likely have to use georeferencing in a full GIS package, such as the georeferncer plugin in QGIS.


Does Adobe Reader 9 automatically update to Adobe Reader X?

Question: I have Adobe Reader 9.4.1. Does it automatically update to X? If not, is it worth installing Adobe Reader X?
Comment: reader X won't overwrite reader 9 ! I've tried it ! As if they are separate programs
Answer:
Does it automatically update to X?

After a quick search I can't find anything that says that adobe reader 9 will automatically update to Reader X.

is it worth installing Adobe Reader X?

According to Adobe's site:

Adobe Reader X adds much in the way of
  new functionality, especially relating
  to highlighting and commenting,
  security, and enhanced user
  experience.

Offline installer is here: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/
Comment: ▲ for the direct link. Adobe DLM can die in a fire.
Comment: @grawity: I totally agree with you.
Answer: I had Adobe Reader 9 installed on my Vista system. Downloading and installing Reader X from Adobe's website replaced this older version (i.e. I now see "Adobe Reader X" where "Adobe Reader 9" used to be in Control Panel -> Programs, and I did not have to uninstall Reader 9 first). Also, checking for updates under version 9 did not show version X - it wanted to update me to some higher 9.x version. Didn't bother with that and just got X from adobe.com instead
Answer: My CNET Tech Tracker Program alerted me to the fact that I needed an update ONLY for AVG.  When I logged in and opened my tracker page, it also showed that "Reader X" was "out of date".
So, because I didn't recognize the "X", I opened my current Reader 9.4.1 and selected "check for updates" under the HELP pulldown memu---the result was that there are "No Updates Available."    Sooooo- apparantly even Adobe doesn't consider "X" an "update" to 9.4.1.
I searched in the Adobe site AND did a serach ON the site, and found no comparison between the two, or ANY explanation for why X is not an "update".  Perhaps it's just a new & different program that does the same old, but more.
My next step was a google serach, which led me to this site.  No help yet on this issue.
I'm going to WAIT for more information, before I install "X".
AFTER I POSTED THIS ANSWER- I found another site- check this out http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-acrobat-x-10-pro-reader-suite-direct-download-links-ddl.html
Looks like Reader X means "10"  (vs 9 - duh)and would be a new version, but not considered an update.  Seems like PC Mag, according to the above link, liked the "ACROBAT X" at least.
Question is, will an "X" install overwrite 9 or will I need to uninstall 9.
I'm still gonna wait.


Was Dumbledore using mass teleportation every day in the Great Hall?

Question: House Elves were cooking all the food, and Dumbledore kept saying "Let's eat", and all the food magically appeared on plates. Was he using mass teleportation every day to perform that trick?
Comment: Pretty sure it was magic built into the castle, the hall and the kitchens.  Dumbledore isn't always around to act as a dumbwaiter.
Comment: @Radhil A Dumble-waiter perhaps? :P
Comment: Related: [How can McGonagall make sandwiches appear?](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/53481/how-can-mcgonagall-make-sandwiches-appear) (the answer has a relevant quote)
Answer: Harry's theory is the food is sent through the ceiling to the tables.
When Hermione took him down to the kitchens, Harry notices tables set up exactly like the ones in the Great Hall above.

"'Yes, sir, yes!' said Dobby, and he seized Harry's hand, and pulled him off into the kitchen between the four long wooden tables that stood there. Each of these tables, Harry noticed as he passed them, was positioned exactly beneath the four house tables above, in the Great Hall. At the moment, they were clear of food, dinner having finished, but he supposed that an hour ago they had been laden with dishes that were then sent up through the ceiling to their counterparts above." - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 21 (The House-Elf Liberation Front)

Harry theorizes that the food is sent up through the ceiling to the tables in the Great Hall. While Harry is certainly not infallible and can be wrong, this seems like a sound presumption. However, it's unclear exactly how the food is sent up through the ceiling. It could be Dumbledore doing it, the house-elves doing it, or the tables could be enchanted to do it themselves.
This occasion in the Great Hall shows the food getting into the Great Hall after it's revealed that the food was made by house-elves, but it doesn't make it clear exactly who or what transports the cooked food up to the Great Hall.

"The Tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast,' said Dumbledore. 'I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!'
He sat down, and Harry saw Karkaroff lean forward at once and engage him in conversation.
The dishes in front of them filled with food as usual. The house-elves in the kitchen seemed to have pulled out all the stops; there was a greater variety of dishes in front of them than Harry had ever seen, including several that were definitely foreign." - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 16 (The Goblet of Fire)
Comment: Isn't that a parallel teleportation: food zaps upwards, becomes ghostly briefly to pass through ceiling and tables, and reappear solid in plates again?
Comment: @VadzimSavenok I've never heard that phrase before actually, but it sounds like it, yes! :)


'01 Lexus IS200, do I need a new fuel filter?

Question: My 2001 Lexus IS200 is about to hit 100 thousand km and I am about to change the oil, oil filter, air and cabin filters. My question is, do I need a new fuel filter this early in the life of the car? It's been using Spanish gas all its life which is not the worst out there, I guess. I have tried to find Lexus recommendations on it but to no avail. Any hints? Thanks a lot in advance for the help.
Answer: The fuel filter on your vehicle is part of its fuel pump in the fuel tank. They are designed and made to last the 'life of the vehicle'. They have a plastic OBD2 fuel tank with an interior 'bladder', which means unless something other then normal operation causes damage they never have to be changed.
Comment: What do you mean by bladder - does it self clean? If so where does it throws all the junk from fuel?
Answer: If it's never been changed, then yes, I'd change it. To get 100k out of a fuel filter is a good life for it. Fuel filters are usually not too expensive, so are a decent maintenance item to take care of. They are also usually fairly easy to change ... usually.


Access iCloud mail via http from iPhone

Question: There are times when you can't use any TCP ports other than 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS), so you can't use Mail accounts that communicate with iCloud via IMAP/POP3/SMTP. But when you go to iCloud.com, it redirects you to the iPhone applications. Is there some way to access iCloud mail via HTTP(S)?
Comment: If there is a solution allowing to fetch and read iCloud mail without using the traditional mail ports in another way than through a browser, that will also be appreciated!
Answer: You can use a 3rd party browser to access icloud.com without being redirected to https://www.icloud.com/iphone_welcome. But beware, as you will see, icloud.com is not designed for a small display size like the iPhone's.
The key to accessing icloud.com is that the web browser doesn't identify itself as Safari Mobile.
Many browsers I tried, including Opera, Mercury and vBrowse, didn't work. I could finally find one which offered exactly this functionality: the full version of Atomic Web (note: I'm not affiliated with Atomic Web in any way) lets you set the browser identity to Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari Desktop.
I chose Firefox 15 and could successfully load icloud.com. However, I soon noticed how uncomfortable it is to browse icloud.com from an iPhone.
To begin with, I couldn't sign in. I pinched and swiped but the display's contents didn't zoom out nor scroll. This is what I saw:

I had to switch to full screen to be able to partially see the Apple ID field:

I tapped on the Apple ID field, the metallic iCloud sign-in window gained focus and could log in.
As I feared, only the left top area of icloud.com's main page was displayed. Luckily, Mail's icon was visible and I could start it:

It was a frustrating experience. I changed orientation several times because, as before, I couldn't reliably scroll. My happiness faded and eventually, tired of trying, I gave up.
I tried Safari Desktop, the WAP browser and IE, but same result (or worse).
So there is a good reason why icloud.com redirects you to use the iPhone apps: icloud.com is not designed to be used with such a small display.
If you really need to have access to iCloud's webmail do yourself a favor and consider getting a tablet. If it's an iPad, install something like Atomic Web. If it isn't, you will be able to access it using the device's default browser.
Comment: Hm, at least we know it won't work in a browser. Still looking for a way to achieve it on the iPhone, maybe there's an app that routes the mail traffic through port 80?
Comment: It may be possible to configure your Mac's firewall (see `man pfctl`) to redirect all traffic from port 80 to mail.me.com:993 and all traffic from port 443 to smtp.me.com:587. You could then set up your iPhone to use your Mac as imap/smtp server. Other options: 1) set up a webmail server yourself (see roundcube.net ) 2) set up a VPN infrastructure that binds to ports 80/443 (see http://openvpn.net, http://peervpn.net or http://freelan.org). Deep packet inspection will probably block non-HTML traffic, though, and it's unclear to me whether the iPhone could connect to any of them.
Comment: Would it be possible to do it the other way around on a jailbroken iOS-device? That is, rout all traffic to `mail.me.com:993` through port `80`?
Comment: You can't route traffic to mail.me.com:993 from your device since it can't access port 993, only ports 80 and 443. You need an external device to do that. Maybe it is clearer with an analogy: if your radio can only tune to a reduced set of frequencies (let's say "frequencies" 80 and 443) and you want to listen to a station elsewhere in the radio spectrum (for instance in "frequency" 993) you need an additional device that 1) can tune in to that station and 2) can broadcast the station to a frequency that your radio can tune.
Comment: That makes sense (but still kinda sucks). Thanks though!
Comment: @jaume I think it should be possible to create a routing server. The question is can you setup the iCloud account that uses 80 and 443 ports.
Comment: You can't reconfigure your iCloud account to use non standard ports, for example iOS grays out the SMTP configuration, but you can set up a new IMAP account pointing to the routing server and configure it to use ports 80 and 443.
Answer: Just install a browser that support changing the user agent. For the iPad I could recommend Terra. But there should be a lot of alternate browsers for iPhone as well (I think I remember Opera for iPhone).
Another way to use the native app would be to use any kind of VPN.
Comment: On iPhone Mercury browser can be used. But I had a bad outcome as icloud.com is not serving a standard html pages but a js magic which is not scalable in the mobile browser
Comment: Oh, I see. Terra on iPad works, but I see how the interface has a fixed size. So, VPN is probably the only solution. However, then it's probably easier to switch to the 3g connection which should not have any restrictions.
Comment: in my particular situation access to mail via 3g is as expensive as the whole other internet. So I was looking for some http solution :). I have to check the VPN option
Answer: As a web developer I understand that there are simply some limitations to websites. It is indeed possible to make, as Apple with iCloud has done, it impossible for users operating certain browsers (user agents, or other means of user-sniffing) to access the site, or a particular page of the site.
As you have seen when you go to www.icloud.com on your "iPhone", it will redirect you to www.icloud.com/iphone-welcome/. They have some pretty specific, and intense (in a way) server redirects that are happening at the server level to send you to a different page, and you will find it impossible (unless they change configuration) to get to the desired, and normal operation of www.iCloud.com. If you open iCloud.com -> Mail you will notice, if you resize your browser horizontally that at a certain point horizontal scroll bars appear. This is obviously undesirable on any device, and they have apparently opted to get around that by simply routing users to the iPhone welcome.
Again, you can use a different browser that allows you to change the user agent, but because www.iCloud.com is so Javascript heavy, it makes it almost impossible to navigate, as noted by @jaume. If Apple developers would have given us not-so-fancy a site, with less javascript, changing the user agent, likely would have worked very well. Javascript enables all the nice UI animations, and such beautifications - as long as you are using a desktop browser.
Interesting side note: you can't access www.iCloud.com at all on an Android browser. You get an "Unsupported" error message.
Answer: Yeah, I just purchased the full version of Atomic Web, and it bars your from going to the "non-Sign-Up-to-iCloud" page like every other browser.  Just wasted my money.  You should update your page to reflect this.
Comment: Welcome to Ask Different! Instead of posting an answer to clarify another post, simply click the edit button below the post that you wish to add clarification to.
Answer: I had this issue as well, trying to bring up iCloud notes for a second account on an iPhone.

You can use mobile Chrome.  The trick here is Request Desktop Site.
Good luck with browsing. As others have said, since Apple expects
you to use Apps on iOS to use iCloud services, they pay close to
zero effort to make this work on an iPhone screen

Access iCloud mail via http from iPhone


Multiresolution Modifier and N-gons

Question: While retopologizing a human head, the internal cavities i.e. nose, mouth, ear, eye lids, were extruded inwards to create the required occlusion effect.
While all the mesh is in quads, the final face in these cavities is an N-gon. After applying the multi res modifier at latter subdivisions, the single ngons turn into a jutting irregular triangular mess. Even when smoothed in to disappear in sculpt mode, they retake their shape at saving or changing modes.
Is there anyway to exclude these n-gons or subvert this effect without doing major changes to the retopology?
Can I at least prevent them from penetrating to the exterior?
Answer: What I would suggest is turning the faces into quads or tris, like by poking (Ctrl+P). I don't know how exactly you want to save your original topology, but this shouldn't visibly change anything from the intended shape.
Alternatively, if you're sure nobody will ever look up the nostrils (if this is a demo render, etc) then you could just remove the faces. however, if you're planning on texturing it open holes in the geometry can cause problems for volumetric or subsurface shaders.
Comment: Poking creates tris which behave as badly if not worse than n-gons. Even turning tris to quads will leave at least 1 tri.  Revisiting retopology makes me lose all multi res detail. I do need to texture.
Answer: Is there any overlapping, inverted, or otherwise crunchy geometry? I would check for inverted normals but other than that I think this is almost definitely a bug. From what I saw it looks like your geometry is neat enough that the smoothing subsurf algorithm shouldn't be confused by anything on your model.

Multiresolution Modifier and N-gons


Workflow task status check not triggering

Question: I have a pretty simple 2013 SharePoint Designer workflow that assigns a task to a user, pauses then go back checks if the task status is set to "incomplete". The column's default value choice is "incomplete" when the tasks are created. However, after the pause, it will not send an overdue email based on the "incomplete" status of the field unless I open the task and deliberately set the field as "incomplete".  Any ideas?
Comment: what does your "if" statement look like?
Comment: Can you tell us what exactly your workflow is doing?
Comment: Thanks for the follow up.  @Flat Banana Just added a screenshot above. It's obviously still in testing mode.
Comment: @wjervis Basically the workflow is attached to a list. When an item is added to the list it assigns a task to the staff member in the list item and waits for a period of time, then checks if the status of the task still equals "incomplete" which is the default value when the item is created. If it is incomplete, it sends a reminder email to the staff member.  For some reason it only fires off the reminder email if I go into the task and manually click "incomplete".  It's like the default value "incomplete" isn't triggering the if statement.
Answer: It looks like you edit the Task Status Choice field and you added "Incomplete" status ! where the default Task Status values are

Not Started
In Progress
Completed
Deferred
Waiting on someone else

With the default value is Not Started , So I think no need to add a new  Incomplete option, just set your condition like as
If Association: Task List:Task Status not equals Completed

It's the same meaning with the default provided values in Task Status Choice field. !


Samsung Galaxy S3 Won't recognize USB

Question: When i got my gs3 i plugged it into my computer (Win 7) and drivers installed automatically. everything was perfectly fine i was able to access both sd and phone from my computer. i took it to activation with clear talk and it didn't recognize usb.
I have reinstalled proper drivers from samsung web page. i have also tried kies. kies wont accept it.
I have tried it on linux and didn't work.
Both computers recognize phone but phone wont recognize computers.
The thing is i won't get the option of mtp or ptp on the drop down notification menu.
this is not a matter of drivers or usb debugging.
i have tried to remove battery for 1 min and reset it.
any ideas how to fix?
Answer: After frustrating research i found the solution. the guy who flashed my phone from us cellular to clear talk messed up.
soulution
Open Dialer enter *#22745927
When Enable/Disable Menu comes up tap "Hidden Menu Disabled"
Select "Enable" on Popup
Press Home button
Open Dialer
Dial **87284
When PhoneUtil Opens Select PDA
Tap Qualacomm USB Setting
Select DM+Modem+ADB
Tap OK
(Remember after flashing to return and put phone back to MTP+ADB)
All props go to this page
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2270191
there is other devices listed there as well.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Won't recognize USB


what allows some cold water to enter house and some to enter water heater?

Question: Informational question:
To supply hot and cold water to a house you:
1. split at the supply for hot and cold lines. Using a tee - you run one line to the house, and the other to the water heater.  My question: what prevents ALL the cold water from going into the water heater? How does a tee allow some to go into the house and some to go to the heater. Is there some other fitting at that conjunction? or
is it simply that the water heater fills up and only so much can go in?
Don't worry. I'm not planning to do any plumbing on my own. I just want to understand!
Comment: It is simply the hot water heater fills up, no more goes into until some comes out.
Comment: Water only flows when a faucet is open. Think about it.
Comment: do you not have any experience with how water behaves?
Answer: I know I am going to be a bit long winded at first before making the point - for a reason so hang on.
Well consider the entire system as a closed system nothing is flowing anywhere at all. When these systems are put together there is also no water at all in the lines so when a valve is opened the water is allowed to flow into the lines or not so much because there is air in those lines. So when the home plumbing is newly turned on at a faucet for example the air is forced out of the lines and you can see this happening. With the water heater the same event must occur - you open a hot water faucet and the water can then flow - previously all of that air pressure kept it back to some extent. Now all of that air is forced out of the water heater and the plumbing lines until you have a system that is filled with  water only.
So now the pressure at any given point is kept in the system by the closed faucet. When you open the facet the water will flow (because it is pressurized by the city) , so that water flows at a certain pressure rating (USA about 80PSi is normal for a residential household).
When you open the hot water faucet you have removed the resistance to the flow of water , because of the pressure of the water and the lack of resistance to it's flow via the hot water tank and the house pipes the water can now flow freely through the path of least resistance - your hot water system.
Now all of that said here is another bit that I know you did not ask for but think can add some real value to your question.
Remember I said when the system was new how all of that air was in the lines , well the same thing will happen when a water heater is replaced - Air will be in it. With a new hot water heater the air must be purged from the system (displaced by water) before you turn the hot water heater on or you will burn up your brand new water heater. This is why it is very important to purge the lines of air after replacing a water heater.


could rockets stay in orbit forever?

Question: when rockets are put in orbit, could they stay in orbit forever? if there was no one to man it, and it was not programmed to come back down, what would happen? would it stay up there, or would earth's gravity pull it back down?
Comment: I hope the moon's pilot is still awake... :)
Comment: Side note: Vanguard 1, the 4th artificial satellite ever launched (it was in 1958) is the oldest man-made object still in space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_1
Comment: yes, that's what being in orbit means.
Comment: Well, eventually it would be destroyed by the Sun expanding ;)
Comment: @SarahBailey That depends on the rocket's orbit, doesn't it? While perhaps not exactly *rockets*, I doubt the Voyager probes will be bothered much by the Sun expanding, for example...
Comment: @MichaelKjörling I was speaking strictly of satellites orbiting Earth.  Voyager will be long gone from Earth by the time Sun's expansion becomes an issue :)
Answer: There's the simplistic theory, and the more complicated practice.
In theory, yes, an object put in orbit would stay there forever. Earth's gravity pull keeps it in orbit, spinning it around the planet instead of flying off. It doesn't pull it back down, because the forces are already balanced.
However, in practice, there's other forces in play. Most importantly, on low Earth orbits, there's just a tiny bit of atmosphere leftovers slowing down the object. Depending on the altitude, it might take months, years, or decades, but eventually it will slow down enough to reenter. Also, there are minute forces from solar radiation and gravitational fields of other objects that might slow down the object (though that might take an awfully long time).

could rockets stay in orbit forever?


Changing destination of SharePoint waffle tile

Question: We have SharePoint online sites in Office 365.  When you are logged into Office 365 there is the waffle menu in the upper-left that contains tiles for all the apps you have access to.  Currently the SharePoint tile goes to https://[domain].sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx.  I would like it to go to https://[domain].sharepoint.com/ instead.  Is there any way to either change the destination URL of that tile, or redirect it?  We did play with creating a custom tile, but that does not show up for everybody - only people who specifically add it.
Answer: I had the same question but still there is nothing we can do about it.
But we can create a custom tile (from Office 365 Admin center) and pin it to the app launcher and this does solve this problem to some extent.
Once the custom tile is created it will be available to everyone, users just need to pin it to the app launcher.
Thanks.


Which search engines prefer an HTML sitemap over an XML sitemap?

Question: Is there a search engine out there that prefers a full HTML sitemap over an XML one? On a site with thousands of articles, does it make sense to include a page that has links to every single page?
Answer: All the big search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing, even Yandex and Baidu can read XML sitemap files.    There may be some small search engines that don't use them, but all the search engines that are likely to send traffic to your site support them.
However, an XML sitemap is not sufficient, even in Google, to get all the pages on your site indexed.  See The Sitemap Paradox.
Every one of your pages needs to be linked from some other page.   The best way to do this is to have each of your articles link to other articles.   This StackExchange site has a list of "related questions" over to the right.   Much of the reason that that list is there is for search engine optimization.   It helps get all the content indexed and ranked.
If all of your articles are links from other articles, there is no reason to have an HTML sitemap.  If you don't have related articles, then a HTML sitemap will at least get everything indexed, even if not ranked well.
I wouldn't put thousands of links into one page.  I'd instead break it up into a set of pages with no more than 500 links on any single page.
Comment: So interlinking is simply for getting the pages indexed. Completely unrelated to ranking? Ranking would be effected more by related canonical linking? So in a site of articles it would make more sense to keep the sitemap high level. List out categories/tags/authors which link to their archive, linked together by pagination.
Comment: How you interlink has a lot to do with how your pages rank.   Getting your page indexed is the bare minimum.  That will happen when Google can find the page, determine that it isn't duplicate, and see that it has at least a link into it.   To rank well, your pages need many links each.   Some internal from the other pages on the site, some from other sites.


Playing Haydn on the modern piano, reading list?

Question: A typical modern score for Haydn has a boatload of editorial suggestions for dynamics, staccato, tenuto, etc. I'm sure these editors know more than I do (that's not hard), but I'd like to know more about the basis of this. After "An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments", what other reading is out there?
Answer: I can recommend "Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music" by Sandra Rosenblum. This book deals with how piano music was played in the classical period--Mozart, Haydn, early Beethoven, Clementi, etc. The author has synthesized treatises from that era with illustrations from the music, and given her own opinions on various problems of interpretation. I found the book very useful in giving me some background in how to make my own decisions on how to play a particular passage or piece.
Answer:
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, by Charles Rosen (2nd ed., 1998, W. W. Norton) is very highly regarded. Worldcat link.

A greatly expanded edition of the National Book Award-winning masterpiece by a world-class pianist and writer on music.
This outstanding book treating the three most beloved composers of the Vienna School is basic to any study of Classical-era music. Drawing on his rich experience and intimate familiarity with the works of these giants, Charles Rosen presents his keen insights in clear and persuasive language. For this expanded edition, now available in paperback for the first time, Rosen has provided a new, 64-page chapter on the later years of Beethoven and the musical conventions he inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The author has also written an extensive new preface in which he responds to other writers who have commented on his ideas. (Amazon)

Classical and Romantic Performance Practice: 1750 - 1900, by Clive Brown (2004, Oxford University Press) focuses specifically on how notations would have been understood by performers of the time. Worldcat link.

The past ten years have seen a rapidly growing interest in performing and recording Classical and Romantic music with period instruments; yet the relationship of composers' notation to performing practices during that period has received only sporadic attention from scholars, and many aspects of composers' intentions have remained uncertain. Brown here identifies areas in which musical notation conveyed rather different messages to the musicians for whom it was written than it does to modern performers, and seeks to look beyond the notation to understand how composers might have expected to hear their music realized in performance. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that, in many respects, the sound worlds in which Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Brahms created their music were more radically different from ours than is generally assumed. (Amazon)


How to activate Steam review comments by default?

Question: Comments on Steam reviews have been deactivated by default. If I want people to be able to comment on my review I have to click the check box to activate comments. I want all my future and past reviews to have comments activated. Is there an option to change the default to active?
Comment: I meant my past comments of the last year since April 2018. They do have comments disabled by default. I know how to enable comments I just don't think of it for every review I write. Maybe Steam will look harder into QOL when Epic Store is strong enough a challenger.
Comment: *"I want all my future and past reviews to have comments activated"* - past reviews do not have comments disabled. And it takes very little to learn to enable comments for new reviews. But yeah, it would be [QOL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life) improvement if I could opt-out from disabled by default comments, which Steam developers unfortunately ignoring for decades.
Answer: Steam disabled them by default because of the new data privacy laws, like the GDPR.
It got changed around the time the GDPR took effect in April 2018.
I wasn't able to find a link to an official statement on the matter by Steam itself, but did find a related message on what I think might be that particular update.
Nor was I able to find a way to fix this, but, considering the comments and the age of the links, I presume there currently is no tweak to change the setting.
Here's a Steam thread where people comment on disabling comments, in case you're interested.
Comment: I wonder why this is written as an answer. OP didn't ask for reasons nor you actually able to provide them. Should be a comment.
Comment: Because, as addressed, there is no way to disable them (well, being software, there *probably* is a way, albeit very hard). It would make little sense to not answer any question that is based on mistaken premises.
Comment: Ah, so it's a "no" answer. But it's very uncertain "no" and in the third paragraph... doesn't really sounds like a solid answer worth posting ;)
Comment: You're right about that, but usually under these circumstances if long-winded threads on different popular websites offer no solutions, one hasn't been found. But you may always improve on my answer :)
Comment: Thanks! Then it seems to be not possible at the moment.


Craftsman lawn tractor

Question: I was driving my lawn tractor when it just stop moving. It did not matter what gear I was in, it was not going anywhere. I removed the mower deck so that I can see under the tractor. I first checked to see if the belt had slipped off the transaxle pulley - it was ok. I then checked the clutch mechanism to see if it was damaged, everything was working as it should. Next was the idler pulley and it was working fine. I started the tractor and put pressure on the belt (the tractor was in gear) and the tractor moved. So, the transaxle is not the problem. To be fair, I do not recommend you do this. I had replaced the drive belt about three years ago. So I do not believe that the belt is bad. I never saw a belt go bad that fast. Usually there is a warning sign like slipping or a squeal sound. Any ideas because I am lost as to what it is.
Answer: There should be a spring on the pulley arm which provides the belt tension. When you pull the handle or push the clutch pedal to release the clutch, you are putting pressure on this spring, then the spring brings it all back together so the belt no longer slips. It sounds as thought this spring may have come off.
Comment: Pollster, The spring is in place and function properly.
Comment: Ok, had time to take a closer look at the problem, and what I found was that the clutch pulley was damaged and the belt was holding it in place.

Craftsman lawn tractor


Renting my book?

Question: I recently discovered that a bookstore is offering my book for rental. Is it legal for the store to rent out my book? Is the store infringing on my copyright? What the store is charging people who might want to rent out my book is well above my book's retail price. I am not sure how to handle this issue and I am not sure if I have any rights in this type of use of my book.
Comment: Did you license any rights to the store, or to a distributor who distributes to the store? What rights, specifically, did you transfer to them?
Comment: Also this question is unanswerable without knowing what jurisdiction you're in, and may be unanswerable without a lawyer.
Comment: Thank you for your input. I researched some more after I posted this question and it does appear that the store can rent my book out if they obtained it legally based on the First Sale doctrine. I do have some other issues that I want to address with an attorney. I appreciate your responses to my question!
Answer: I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that, in the US, for books, the First-Sale doctrine allows the legitimate owner of a legitimate copy of a book to re-sell, lend, or rent that book. It is under this doctrine that libraries operate, for example.
There are exceptions to this doctrine, for example, it appears to be illegal to rent audio recordings, but as far as I can tell there is no such limitation for books.

Renting my book?


Borderline malicious code?

Question: I'm not sure if this counts as writing malicious code. What does the community think?
Comment: I say no. But I have to go so no good reasons yet
Comment: I don't have an opinion at present, but it may be worth considering two things: 1.  Are the answers likely to be of any use to people with malicious intent? 2. Will the existence of the challenge give people the impression that malicious code requests are acceptable here?
Comment: [The original malicious code meta post for reference.](http://meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/4829/should-asking-for-malicious-code-be-on-topic?rq=1) (not a duplicate - that one doesn't cover how to draw the line between malicious and not malicious)
Comment: [Related](http://meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/4829/should-asking-for-malicious-code-be-on-topic?rq=1)
Answer: A small, finite memory leak is not malicious
Using up all a computer's memory is a denial of service attack, and thus arguably malicious (although it's something that's easily done by mistake and easily done intentionally, and also has many existing safeguards against it, so PPCG wouldn't really be helping any malware authors there). But that's this question, which is a different question.
Wasting a small amount of a computer's memory in a way that can't be recovered until the program ends is, on most operating systems, entirely harmless, and something that nonmalicious programs do all the time intentionally. (After all, keeping the memory allocated but nonleaked has exactly the same effect on other processes.) It would be potentially problematic on operating systems like DOS, in which a memory leak makes the memory unusable until the system is rebooted (!), but those systems are in the minority nowadays (and DOS users are likely used to rebooting fairly often anyway).

Borderline malicious code?


In the Bakumatsu period, was there any way to identify which clan a person belonged to?

Question: Was there any way to identify which clan someone belonged to (other than when they wore their formal wear with their mon/emblem on their attire). In other words did they carry something on their person such as a sword branded with their emblem or distinct clothing that would make them instantly recognisable of that clan?
Answer: No, there was no way to tell.
If a confrontation occurred, there were laws that dictated how the parties involved were supposed to announce themselves to each other.
Note that in the period in question the old samurai system was starting to break down.
Comment: So you mean before a duel they would normally announce themselves and their clan before fighting? I suppose that might not apply to assassins (?)
Comment: @user232670 Yes, anytime two named people "encountered" each other for any reason, they were supposed to announce who they were to each other and there was a protocol for that. Fighting somebody without announcing yourself was extremely illegal. Such rules did not apply to commoners who were not even allowed to possess weapons, forget about fighting anyone.
Answer: Also, there were family crests worn on kimono so clan/family/domain affiliation could be discerned but not everyone had a crest. The crest, called a 'mon' was often round and had stylized elements in it. Mitsubishi's trademark comes from the crest of the family that founded the company.


SkyNet3D firmware home settings

Question: I recently installed SkyNet3D V1.1 on my Anet A8 printer. When I prepare the printer and select "auto home" it moves the head close to the upper right hand side of the bed. How do I change these settings so the printer auto homes to the center of the bed? Any help is appreciated.
Comment: Have you found and fixed the problem? If so, have the answers below led you to the solution? Please vote to accept an answer (using the tick button next to the answer) so this question is not bumped up once in a while and can be removed from the unanswered question list. You may even add your own solution and accept that after 48 hours! If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.
Answer: Please note that Skynet3D is OBSOLETE, this was a fork from Marlin Firmware that was created to support the "odd" displays (due to alternative pin layout) Anet use on their printers and has been completely integrated in Marlin.

Note that homing is used to hit the end stops to determine the positioning of the head. There is no such thing as homing in the center of the bed (apart from the Z-axis). How would the head know where it is just after switching the printer on?
When using the constant:
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING

the printer is instructed to move the head to (in this case to the middle of the bed):
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_X_POINT (X_BED_SIZE / 2)    // X point for Z homing when homing all axis (G28).
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_Y_POINT (Y_BED_SIZE / 2)    // Y point for Z homing when homing all axis (G28).

after sending the G28 homing command.
Basically it wil home X and Y, then move to the instructed position (in the example the middle of the bed) and then home Z.

SkyNet3D firmware home settings


Is it possible to trace of the ancestry of a person by only using his/her genetic information?

Question: Is it possible to trace the descent of a person only using his/her genome sequence?
Comment: I edited your question to make it more clear. You mean the genetic information, the sequencing of the genome, right?
Answer: In short, yes, it is possible. There are companies that sequence part of your genome and then can trace it back to your ancestors. All human family trees can be traced back to their African origin 200 000 years ago, but the companies that sequence your genes do not do that. For example, 23andMe sequences only 1 million of your base pairs (single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)). They trace your most recent heritage, which could lead to Europe, Africa, or Asia. They can basically trace which part of your chromosomes (and thus your ancestry) came from your mom or your dad:

Unlike the sex chromosomes and the mitochondrial DNA, which are inherited as blocks, the 22 biparental chromosomes, known as autosomes, are scrambled during reproduction. Through a process known as recombination, each parent pulls his or her paired set of 22 autosomes into chunks, then reassembles a new single set using half the material from each pair. The two single sets of chromomes from each parent are combined into a new paired set when a sperm fertilizes an egg.

You can read more about 23andMe here. There are other companies that are specialized in tracing your ancestry: Genetic Genealogy, DNA Tribes, and Heirlines.
Answer: Back when I was doing my PhD, there was a group in the same department as me working on an interesting project exploring the extent to which surnames (generally paternally inherited, at least in the modern west) and Y chromosomes (always paternally inherited) shared their descent.
The answers are always complicated, especially for more common surnames which have multiple origins. There are also confounding factors, such as the rate of non-paternity (which can be surprisingly high, often around 1-2%). It is, however, striking just how much you can tell about a person's heritage, just from a relatively small amount of genetic information.
For more info about the surnames work, see (1) and (2).