How can I locate the leak in my roof?

Question: My concrete flat roof is 2 years old.  Above the roof I have fixed terracotta tiles.  During heavy rains I find water leakages (dropping) inside my house in several places.  Water drain is perfect.  No water stagnation after rain stops. I couldn't find any cracks, holes in my roof.  Kindly suggest me how to find out the exact leakage point.  I would be ever thankful for your valuable suggestion.  I want to get rid of this problem.
Comment: pull up the tiles and see if the water proofing is damaged
Comment: If it's in several places, I'd say this isn't something you just want to patch. Sounds like an overall failure of the roofing system. Might come down to a full tear-off and redo, unfortunately.
Answer: Go into the attic next time it rains. Look around for a leak above the places it leaks in the house. Additionally, sometimes leaks will "travel down" a rafter a bit before dripping down, so check your raters for water trails, and follow them!
Comment: I have never seen roof leak that did not travel quite a distance from where the leak was found.  Good luck!

How can I locate the leak in my roof?


Process vs Threads

Question: How to decide whether to use threads or create separate process altogether in your application to achieve parallelism.
Answer: Threads are more light weight, and for the making several "workers" just to utilize all availabe CPUs or cores, you're better of with threads.
When you need the workers to be better isolated and more robust, like with most servers, go with sockets. When one thread crashes badly, it usually takes down the entire process, including other threads working in that process. If a process turns sour and dies, it doesn't touch any other process, so they can happily go on with their bussiness as if nothing happened.
Answer: Processes have more isolated memory.  This is important for a number of reasons:

It is harder for a single task to crash the other tasks.
More memory will be available per process.  This is important for large, high-performance applications like Apache or database servers, like Postgres.  This is important for both allocated memory and memory mapped files.
Answer: The degree of parallelism mainly depends on the physical processors / cores available on your machine. If you have a single-processor/core machine, then having seperate processes may cause too much overhead. Threads would generally be preferred in that case.
If you have multiple cores/CPUs then depending on what each process/thread does, you may opt for processes if the overhead is justified. Processes obviously have a much better level of memory isolation than threads - but at the same time in Windows, processes are fairly heavy, compared to threads.
Threads of course can share data in the same process - but again you would need to synchronize access to the shared data - to prevent corrupt state. Sharing data between processes is more involved, the overhead (which is greated than simple thread synchronization) depending on the mechanisms used such as Named pipes, custom sockets-based communication, using a remoting framework, shared file / database etc.
Answer: Generally you should use processes when the individual execution streams don't need to share global data and you would like to have each protected from the other.
Answer: A couple of links that could help you decide, I hope:
http://blog.labnotes.org/2006/08/29/why-processes-scale-better-than-threads/
http://www.jroller.com/cpurdy/entry/fastcgi_not_so_fast
Answer: In Windows, processes are heavier to create then threads. So if you have several smaller tasks a thread or thread pool would be better. Or use a process pool to recycle the processes. Also sharing state between processes is more work then sharing state between threads. But then again: Threads could destabilize a complete process taking other threads down with it. If you want to minimize the chance of that happening you could go for separate processes. .Net's AppDomains might be a middle ground between both.

Process vs Threads


Where are some useful SQL puzzles to teach SQL in a workplace?

Question: I'm looking for beginner and intermediate level SQL puzzles, that I can point trainees at for practice.
I'm aware of http://sqlzoo.net/ which is a great resource - is there anything else out there that you could suggest?
Answer: Joe Celko's books and newsgroup posts are a good source of puzzles (with a variety of answers). They might be a bit more intermediate/advanced and not MySQL-specific, but are easy to follow and generally come from practical real-world situations.
Particularly, hunt down a copy of Joe Celko's SQL Puzzles and Answers (link to Google preview), it's a compilation of some of the best.
The SQLTeam forums occasionally have some interesting problems too, but generally focused on MS SQL Server.
The HackerRank SQL domain has a variety of SQL challenges that can be completed using multiple implementations (e.g.: Oracle, MySql, MS SQL Server, DB2).
Answer: There are lots of interesting puzzles and contests in BeyondRelational.Com
TSQL Challenges
TSQL Beginners Challenge
Comment: Are solutions posted anywhere for the beginners challenges?
Answer: SQL Server Central has some quizzes here:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/tags/T-SQL/SQL+Puzzles/
There's also SQL Quiz, which is more like quiz questions rather than puzzles:
http://www.sqlquiz.com/
And Lessthandot has some general programmer puzzles:
http://forum.lessthandot.com/viewforum.php?f=102
Answer: One that I've used before is: http://www.sql-tutorial.ru/en
Has an interactive book with exercises (and tips) and solutions
Answer: You can sign up for SQLServerCentral's Newsletter and receive a Question of the Day (among other news and articles) in your mailbox daily.
One thing to note is that in addition to SQL, the questions also focus on database administration. They are pretty challenging though.
Answer: Practical skills of SQL language has a good collection of exercises for beginners as well as for experienced programmers.
Answer: Found these

http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/lionel/default.aspx
http://sqlzoo.net/
https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=666829
Answer: The best puzzle site that I have found is Advanced SQL Problems which are well-written, thought provoking - the author thoughtfully provides DDL and data - unlike many questions here. Also, unlike many questions here, the desired result is also provided - well worth a look!
There are two sites which really stand out for learning SQL, especially Oracle (for MySQL see below).

Oracle forums. Pay particular attention to the posts of Frank Kulash and Solomon Yakobson (sometimes things of rare beauty) but anyone with a rep of > 20k merits attention. Check the rankings on the forums page.

Orafaq forums. Solomon Yakobson (again), Michel Cadot and Black Swan are to be followed here.

Many lesser padawan answer questions using PL/SQL only to be set straight by (amongst others) the sensei specified above who point out pure SQL solutions of such pulchritude as to make the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) pale in comparison.
For MySQL see here - a "cookbook" of MySQL queries.
Finally, I would just say that there are many texts worthy of study. Check Celko, DuBois and Gulutzan inter alia.
Not about SQL puzzles per se, but more about grasping the Zeitgeist of SQL are two sites from Marcus Winand:

Modern SQL - describes the advances in SQL since the 1992 standard which (at least he feels) are under-utilised

Use The Index Luke - "A site explaining SQL indexing to developers—no crap about administration."
Answer: Answering my own question in order to suggest this entertaining SQL murder mystery puzzle - there's an "experienced" level, and a more detailed "walkthrough" level where each concept you'll need to solve the mystery is explained and practiced. Covers concepts from "What is SQL/a relational database" to aggregate functions and joins.
https://mystery.knightlab.com/
Github if you want to run locally: https://github.com/NUKnightLab/sql-mysteries


When saving as a JPEG, illustrator keeps cutting parts of my artboard off

Question: I created a graphic in Illustrator, and there is a lot of white space around the graphic itself, but it is all within the artboard. When I got to export my piece as a JPEG, Illustrator does whatever it wants with the white space; cuts it off, adds more??
Answer: Instead of Saving as JPG... use the Asset Export Window

Select all the illustration components and drag them to the window holding
Alt
Check the JPG export settings if necessary launching the Export for Screen Dialog icon at the bottom
Click the Export button
Answer: By default, Illustrator will only export the exact borders of the "artwork" on the artboard, be it smaller or bigger than the artboard.
In order to use your artboard borders when exporting, make sure to select Use Artboards in the Export dialog.

Additionally, you can use File → Save for Web (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S) instead, there you can also choose to use the artboard.


Good Question Asking: Am I providing too much information?

Question: I gave a ton of contextual information in this question. Is that an effective question, or should I strive to be more editorial in the content of my questions. Seems like there's a delicate balance, but most of the time it seems to me people don't provide enough context, and it results in a bunch of comment-based question refinement and iteration.
Comment: Providing necessary information is important but being concise is good too.  If a question is more than 1/2 a screen or 4 paragraphs or so, you need to carefully consider what information is really relevant.
Answer: In your question, I don't think you added more information than was relevant to the question. On the other hand, the question is so long, I didn't really read the whole thing.
This other question for sure is giving too much information. A giant block of code with no relevance to the question being asked. And at the same time, that question provides too little information, since it doesn't even say what OS or platform is being asked about in a platform-specific programming question.
Comment: It's a sad tendency I noticed on stack exchange: Many people will pay more attention to a "PLZ halp rite nao!!!!PLZ!!!THX" type questions than to a well written but a bit more complex question.
Comment: Rereading the question, I find it's much easier to follow on a big monitor than on my laptop at home, so there's something. On the other hand the request is pretty specific, which narrows down the potential pool of responders. As soon as I got to "I want to know how to implement the prescribed characteristics using Eagle CAD" I could stop reading, since I have never used Eagle.
Answer: I've had similar experience on SuperUser and it looks like people just can't be bothered to read a somewhat more complex question. In such cases, I usually post a bounty and hope for the best, if I really need help or answer the question myself.
One thing that I always wanted to do  but didn't have the courage is to post a crippled question on purpose. It will at least get the attention of "close-police" which in some cases may be better than no attention at all.
In the end it seems that all those guidelines for writing good questions which tell user to include as much relevant information as possible are wrong since they assume that the users who will want to answer the question will be as good users as the user who asked the question.
I guess that some people are just after quick rep and your complex question will have worse effort/upvote ratio than simpler and more popular questions.
Comment: @Olin Lathrop Maybe I wasn't clear enough. In my opinion, people who decide what to do in their own free time can't be considered evil because of that. I mostly ranted about unfortunate truth. Maybe some research needs to be done on how to write "fun" questions, since such questions would attract more answers.
Comment: @OlinLathrop: No, it is not "totally wrong." Far from it. It has long been documented on Meta that easy questions (a) garner the most upvotes, and (b) are answered the fastest with (c) the most answers. You *cannot* argue that there isn't some aspect of [gamification](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/10/the-gamification.html) inherent to the system. That article I linked to was written by the co-founder of SO, by the way. Also, I don't think anyone here (with the exception of the newest of users) forgets that all contributions are volunteer work, so please stop hiding behind that defense.
Comment: You would have a point is we were paid to answer qustions, but you seem to have forgotten we are all volunteers here.  As such, we are perfectly allowed to decide for whatever reason we don't want to answer a question.  That can include it's not "fun", not my area of interest, the guy's avatar clashes with the colors behind the monitor, or not feeling like reading 3 pages of question.  It is totally wrong and rude to suggest evil motives for people who's only fault is not spending their free time on a particular thing.
Comment: @Simple: My point is you don't need a defense, as there is nothing wrong with not answering something in the first place.  I was reacting to how judgemental this answer is of people not answering some questions.  That's just wrong, and rude.
Answer: No, for me anyway, that was not a effective question.
It looks like you provided lots of necessary information and your question looks well written, but I can't say for sure as I didn't read it.  I remember seeing it originally, but the sheer size of it made it feel like too much work to read and understand, so I skipped it.
Maybe your question really needed all that detail, maybe it didn't, but I'll never know.
I'm not saying this is fair or that you did anything wrong necessarily.  But remember, you asked for feedback, so I'm telling you what my reaction was.
Comment: Why all the downvotes? He's just telling us the facts. Remember a down vote means "This answer is not useful" (hover over the arrow to see for yourself). Olin's answer clearly *is* useful because he's telling us how a real user responds to a real question.
Comment: @Rocketmagnet That is not what they mean on meta. On meta a downvote means, "I disagree" and an upvote means, "I agree". He is honest, I appreciate olin shares his opinion even if he knows it is not popular, but if someone disagrees they say so by downvoting.
Comment: @OlinLathrop I thought that would be the case, I would do the same. The issue being, now someone writes a really thorough question that definitely meets our requirements, thoroughly, but no one reads it because they made sure to give detail and it became long. It is funny, poor question and downvotes, okay question and upvotes, great question and no votes.
Comment: Thanks Olin, I appreciate the feedback
Comment: Did you upvote the question for being well written and detailed before you moved on?
Comment: @Kortuk: No, I didn't vote on the question at all.  I didn't really read it, so felt I didn't have enough knowledge of the question to properly judge it.  I formed a impression of the question from a quick skim, mostly scolling.  That was enough for me to decide to skip it, but not enough to feel informed enough to vote on it.
Comment: @Rocket: Some people have a hard time separating the message from the messenger, opinions from facts, and the correctness of facts from how much they like them.  It is surprising to see so much of this on a engineering site.  Imagine what it would be like on a art site!  I think the downvotes are because some aren't happy with my reasoning, although whether they like the facts or not has no bearing on their correctness or relevance to the question asked.  Not everyone is a logical thinker.  Fortunately here in meta votes don't really matter, so it's mostly just amusing.
Comment: @Kortuk: Actually, I think the excessive length made it not a great question.  It is possible to dilute a message with too much detail, just like not enough detail is bad too, as we see so often.  It's sortof like saying I need a 10.235 kOhm +-5% resistor.  Part of good writing is to know what is relevant and what is not, and therefore distracting clutter.  A OP may not always know what is relevant, so some excess info is better than too little, but there still has to be a reasonable ballance.  You can't just dump everything you saw in the last week on us either.
Comment: @OlinLathrop I dont consider this a seperating the messanger from the message issue.
Comment: @kortuk: I agree. This is a case of not separating correctness of facts from how much you dislike them. What I stated in this post was just facts, which is how I perceived the post in question. That was what was asked. Being facts, there is nothing to agree or disagree with, especially since nobody is in a position to say the facts are incorrect as there was nobody else in my head at the time (I think, anyway). You can disagree with my course of action, but that is not what the post is about or what was asked. I'm not bothered by the downvotes, but they don't make sense in this case.
Comment: @OlinLathrop, I disagree with "No, for me anyway, that was not a effective question." Hope that makes sense. I dont agree it was ineffective, but the fact it has very little attention shows although the meta community may disagree, you are clearly in the popular category here.
Comment: @Kortuk: The point is that you can't disagree that *for me* it was a ineffective question. You can feel that for you it wasn't or that in general it shouldn't be, but unless you are in my head you can't say how I felt about it. Again, I find all this amusing, but there is a logical fallacy here.
Comment: @OlinLathrop That is where I think you may be misunderstanding the point of meta. I am not voting whether or not I believe you felt that way, I am voting how I feel. Right now 3 people(including you) feel this way. Right now 4 people disagree with that view of the question. We are voting on your opinion as to if we share it.
Answer: Look, this is giving too much background: C coding design - function pointers?. Only the last three lines would've been enough as well. I've wasted people's time with providing a lot information that might have been relevant, but not necessary in order to answer the question.
There are two main issues with providing too much background information:

The question might get so long that some people don't read it, thus you'll get fewer response
The question might not seem useful to users with the same problem but a different background, which results in much duplicates

Now concrete on your question.
What you've done is provide a lot information about Eagle, and a lot information from the datasheet. Your question is about the usage of Eagle. This means...

Information about the datasheet is not necessary, unless it is used to explain what you want
Information about what you can do with Eagle is not necessary, unless it is to explain that that's not your problem

In my opinion, the information from the datasheet is useful to understand your question. I feel the same when it comes to the information you provided about Eagle.
But does a lot useful information make a question effective?
No, your question was a TLDR to many users, I think. At least is was for me, until I read this Meta question. There are a few ways to improve your post's readability:

Scale down the images, place them next to each other eventually (you did the latter once). Especially the images from Eagle could've been smaller, but those from the datasheet too.
Quote text from the datasheet instead of placing them in an image. This gives those texts a nice layout.
Add in headings. That's how this long post can be still effective.
Mention the question in the first paragraph. Users specialised in the topic will read further, others probably not but they wouldn't have something to add anyway. Of course, still mention the question in one of the last sentences as well, to avoid people shouting "NARQ!!!"
Answer: I lose the details when there are more than three and I don't yet know where the conversation/question is going.  So I usually request people to give me the punch line first, when they're telling me about an event in their day or asking for help. It helps me to put the rest of what follows into context, or to ignore some it as irrelevant. Otherwise, I have to try to retain all of the details (which I don't do well), only to find out later which ones (typically, very few) mattered in context.
So Keelan's example question would be better framed for me if he'd put the final paragraph at the top, ahead of the details. I'd then know what he wanted and could read the rest choosing skim or read for detail as I needed to.


Is using VPN haram?

Question: I want to buy books and movies from sites that are only specific to certain areas. I want to pay but I can't. When I use VPN I can access those page and buy. Sites like hotstar, popcornflix, etc. Is it haram to use VPN, since I ain't pirating, I am buying.
Answer: The VPN is a private network which you use to enter restricted blogs in your country.
Firstly it's halal because you do not violate the sanctities of others and the site or server is provided to you free of charge or from the owner of your own.
If you want to know judgement about its use taken from  what its use for, In some countries, pornographic websites are blocked by government for your use In this cases it become Haram, because it used for haram this is another situation, another situation when  the government prevents access  important sites such as study, communication sites, or even important religious sites, because they differ with another country or with another religion. In this case it becomes permissible and may become obligatory.
The conclusion the Govern on it from what its use for and Allah know.
Comment: I can't tell what this answer says.
Comment: its say sometimes its halal and sometimes its haram and sometimes you must used upon to what you use it for
Comment: I edit for you read it agin
Answer: If you are accessing content either restricted by your country or by Sharia then VPN is haraam. Because obeying laws of your country is part of faith from the below evidence.

Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): "O you
who believe! Fulfill (your) obligations" [al-Maa'idah 5:1] and the
words of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him):
"Muslims are bound by their conditions, except a condition that
forbids something permissible or permits something forbidden." Abu
'Eesa [at-Tirmidhi] said: This is a hasan saheeh hadith. It was
classed as saheeh by Shaykh al-Albaani (may Allah have mercy on him)
in Saheeh Ibn Maajah (2353).
Answer: Unless you are using it for the wrong purposes (haram or sinful), it's completely fine since VPNs are used to protect the Internet.
Answer: Inshallah, it is haram to use any website which contains explicitly haram content. If they profit from any haram activities or content then the entire site and network is haram. Any dealing with those who do haram is itself haram. This includes generating revenue for them by surfing their websites or using their encryption. We must avoid helping those who do evil. Therefore, using a VPN to protect anonymity is halal if the VPN restricts haram content from its servers and networks. If a VPN or a website or a service deals in haram it is haram. The mufti of the tyrant is also a tyrant. Allah knows best.
This is according to Sheikh Khalid Yasin, https://www.khalidyasin.com/
Comment: VPNs don't *always* cause Haram. Many Muslims in Israel use those to access Muslim websites that are banned over there.

Is using VPN haram?


Is there a way to find out what component in my laptop is generating noise?

Question: My Inspiron 300m is making a loud noise and I think it's coming from the fan. Is there a way to confirm or verify where the noise is coming from?
Answer: Run Prime95 and see if the noise speeds up -- if so then it is certainly the fan.
It can't hurt to shoot some compressed air in there, and see if that helps clean anything out.
Comment: definitely noise speeds up! Time for a new one I guess.
Answer: The most common source of laptop noise are misaligned fans. If the laptop is often overheating the fans have to work harder and can/will eventually collapse.
Depending on the type of sound it may also be a vibration from a loose hard drive or CD/DVD-ROM drive housing. Normally this sound is a slighter hum than the sound of an unbalanced fan.
Turn the laptop around and press lightly in different places until the noise varies. If it does, identify the spot and try to see if there is anything loose. It could be a screw covering the hard disk, a battery or some other component.
Comment: defect fan > more heat > fan runs faster > more noise > fan may start to malfunction > more heat > hot laptop with a lot of noise
Comment: not sure I buy "misaligned". Fans wear out and get old, yes, but in my experience it's more often junk stuck in the fan that causes problems, worn bearings, etc. But yeah, it's almost certainly a fan.
Answer: I had this problem with my old Latitude 2120. It would make this horrible noise, overheat, take a nap. I thought I would have to replace the fan, had it open, and bam..there it was. A small piece of plastic (I still have no clue where it had come from) was inside of the fan case. Removed it and bam, that fan worked for the rest of the computer's life. So I'm seconding the above comment. (I can't leave a comment as I'm still new yet.)
So maybe take it apart and give it a look. You never know. I hope this helps, and if it doesn't then I hope you find the answer you're looking for!


creating new field on mysql

Question: I would like to add extra sections like "gender" on the WordPress user database. I would like to draw information from this information later. For example, let's say I want to attract gender. I created custom registration pages using the "ultimate member" extensions for this, but nothing changed in the database. there is still information like "user name, nickname, e-mail, registration data" only.
Comment: You shouldn't modify the main WP tables to add extra data, that's what user meta is for
Answer: You can find any additional information in the usermeta table as meta_key meta_value pairs.
Wordpress doesn't create additional database columns for custom fields. That's one of the great concepts that make Wordpress so smart and flexible.
Comment: what I really want to do is to ask for extra information when a new member is registered. Like birthday, gender, and other things. With the help of add-ons I can do it in the frontend as much as I can. That is, it only records "e-mail, nickname, password" in the "wp-users" section of the database. I want to save extra questions like gender and age in the database. Because I will have to pull this information out of the database in the future.

creating new field on mysql


Political leanings on the county level, or state level?

Question: I've compiled some covid data, and I think adding some political leaning data might make it a little spicy. I've seen some maps of political leaning for counties, but I cant find a source. I'm looking for a data set that has counties (or states, preferably counties) that show their political leanings. Hopefully in a simple format, like +4 Democrat or +4 Republican.
Comment: do you mean polling data, or election results? polling data may not be complete, since some counties are not-so-interesting for the election.
Comment: Election results, should have mentioned that!
Answer: 538 has a pretty cool election forecast page:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
you can get a direct download of the polling data: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/data-webpage-data/datasets/polls.zip
they also have a data page at github that links other CSVs and explains the data model: https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/election-forecasts-2020


Blender all texture images into one

Question: i want to export a blender model for my game, and it would be much easier to import it, when it contains only one texture image. Unfortunetaly there are 6 texture images. The question is: How can i put all texture images into one image, so i don't have to re-map the textures?
Answer: I think what you want to do is "bake" the textures.
You turn on all of your textures, and then bake them on, which will produce an image texture that should contain everything.
Here are the controls:

Blender all texture images into one


Phrase for describing something with many pros and cons

Question: What's an appropriate phrase or idiom to describe something (e.g. a concept, tool, device, etc.) with many pros and cons. In fact, both parties have rational facts about their opinion and they are right.
Comment: What's wrong with "complicated"?
Comment: "A lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what have yous."
Comment: Are you thinking of a two-sided issue or debate? Because if there are two sides, each with their arguments, there probably isn't a word.
Comment: "I can see merits in both points of view"
Answer: You might refer to the issue or situation as a mixed bag:

2 : one having both positive and negative qualities or aspects • his performance was a mixed bag
from m-w.com
Answer: a multifaceted issue vocabulary,com

complicated issues that have lots of contributing factors and generate
  more than two sides to an argument

As in:

"So, the issue is extremely multifaceted. Take any of these single
  issues and there will be a cascading effect in many unforeseen ways."
Comment: facets of a diamond are many more than pro and con.
Answer: An old but serviceable idiom for this might be:
"six of one, half-dozen of the other"
which is used to indicate a bevy of roughly-balancing pros and cons.
Answer: If "both parties have rational facts about their opinion" on a topic "and they are right", then the topic is, by definition, one on which reasonable people can disagree.
The essence of the phrase is that there are rational, factual arguments to be made favoring at least 2 different conclusions. It can be used when there is simply not enough evidence to support one conclusion over the other or when the conclusion is based on how you value the various pros and cons.

Reasonable people disagree about whether the first-move advantage in Chess is so big that a perfect player playing white (and therefore
  moving first) will always beat the other player. Eventually computers
  will be powerful enough to settle the question.
Reasonable people can disagree about the value of social media like Facebook, because on the one hand it appears to promote connection and
  maintaining relationships among friends, on the other hand there is
  evidence that on the whole it makes people more unhappy and displaces
  more meaningful in-person connection with friends.

I disagree with the choice of mixed bag because that phrase is about there being a variety of dissimilar components. It is true that when a solution is a mixed bag then often reasonable people can disagree whether the solution is on the whole an improvement over the original problem or not, but they are still different concepts.
For example, at this point in time, one can say that giving children a measles vaccination is a mixed bag, because there is some short-term discomfort and a very rare chance of some kind of long-term negative consequence to it, but it is no longer true that reasonable people can disagree about the value of it.
I also disagree with multifaceted as that indicates a topic is complex with many different aspects to consider. A topic (for example, the death penalty) can be fairly well represented by only 2 sides and still be one on which reasonable people can disagree.
I disagree with "six of one, half-dozen of the other" because that refers to a situation where 2 choices are roughly equivalent. In those cases there is generally no disagreement or argument, but rather both choices are widely acknowledged to be so similar that either one is acceptable and purely a matter of personal preference. Whether you put on socks and shoes in the order sock, shoe, sock, shoe or sock, sock, shoe, shoe is six of one, half-dozen of the other. There really is no significant rational argument to be made on either side.
Similarly I disagree with "on the one hand..., on the other hand...". What that does describe an situation where there are competing pros and cons, it generally expresses that the speaker cannot decide one way or the other because of that. Someone using that phrase would be unlikely to argue for one side or the other.
Answer: One hand, another hand: On one hand..., but on the other hand...
For example, "the tool is very useful and works best for what it was designed to do. On the other hand, it is expensive and has very limited use."
Note that the sentence did not need to start with "one hand," but we can still use the second or other hand anyway. You could convey the same intended meaning by using a word or phrase that sets up contrast by starting the second part of the idea indicating that what follows is in contrast to what came before, such as "the tool is unique and useful, but it is expensive and rarely used."


Proof that Niederreiter Cryptosystem is correct

Question: I read about Niederreiter Cryptosystem. I understood the Key Generator, encryption and decryption of the cryptosystem, but if I want to prove that is a correct cryptosystem, what should I do?
Comment: Correctness of encryption scheme is just a simple property which means that after applying encryption algorithm, and then decryption, you will receive the original text. It's very simple to verify if you understand those algorithms.  Ok, maybe you're interesting in security of the scheme? It's way more difficult to prove
Answer: To prove the correctness of an encryption scheme (not necessarily Niederreiter), you have to prove that for a honestly generated key pair, any honestly generated ciphertext decrypts correctly.
Formally, let $(pk, sk) \leftarrow KeyGen(1^\lambda)$ be the public and private key pair, and let $m$ be uniformally random in the (finite) plaintext space, and denote by $c \leftarrow Encrypt(pk, m)$ an encryption of message $m$ (pseudo-random in the ciphertext space) under the public key $pk$. Then you have to show that $Decrypt(sk, c) == m$ with overwhelming probability, meaning that either the decryption always succeeds if all steps were executed honestly, or it fails with probability negligible in the security parameter $\lambda$.
For instance, you prove the correctness of textbook RSA by showing that $(m^e)^d == m \bmod n$ for honestly generated $n=pq$, $\varphi(n)=(p-1)(q-1)$, $e$ coprime with $\varphi(n)$ and $d = e^{-1} \bmod \varphi(n)$.
Comment: $$pk : (H_{pub}, t)$$
$$sk : (P, D_{G}, M)$$
$$H_{pub}=M\cdot H\cdot P$$
The message is: $$e\in \mathbb{F}^{n}_{2}$$.
$$Encrypt(H^{pub},t,e^{T}) = c$$
$$Decrypt(P,D_{G},M,c)=H^{pub}\cdot e^{T}\overset{H^{pub}=M\cdot H\cdot P}{\rightarrow}M\cdot H\cdot P\cdot e^{T}\overset{M^{-1}}{\rightarrow}H\cdot P\cdot e^{T}\overset{D_{G}}{\rightarrow}P\cdot e^{T}\overset{P^{-1}}{\rightarrow}e^{T}\rightarrow e$$
Is that correct?
Comment: Almost, there is an important property that you use to claim that the result of $D_G$ applied to $HPe^T$ will be $Pe^T$, and that I don't see in your comment, which is that **$e$ has weight at most $t$**. Your notation for the message is a bit confusing since you write that "the message is $e\in \mathbb{F}_2^n$", in particular there is no restriction over $e$'s weigth, and then you use that $e$ has weight at most $t$. Otherwise, I think that you got it. Also notice that most of the time, the matrix $M$ is denoted $S$ (and referred to as a "scrambling" matrix).
Comment: Thanks a lot! I forgot to mention the weight, that' s true


Animate a graphics with derivative function that gathered from NDSolve

Question: I'm defined W[t] and Q[t] like below. This code is an example that shows my problem. My real code is very long and complex that i cant make change in it. I solved my differential equations but sum function that defined by derivatives the same of W[t] and Q[t] can't be used in animation graphics. If i define them without D[,t] function i could use them in animated graphics but i need them in this form. I can Plot W[t] and Q[t] and i can gather this function output in a desired time easily but i can't animate a ball or line with using W[t] and Q[t]. /.sol//Evaluate
Works for plot and animated Plot but didn't work for Animated graphics. please help me for use of my function in animated Plot. My real code is very long and i cant make change in body of code.
ClearAll[W, Q, x, sol, a]
W[t_] := Max[Piecewise[{{-1, Q[t] <= 0}, {1, Q[t] > 0}}], 0];
Q[t_] := D[x[t], {t, 2}] + x[t];
sol = NDSolve[{Q[t] + x[t] == 1, x[0] == 1, x'[0] == 2}, {x, x'}, {t,0,2}];
Plot[(Q[t] + W[t]) /. sol // Evaluate, {t, 0, 2}]       (*Correctly worked*)
Animate[Plot[(Q[a] + W[a]) /. sol // Evaluate, {a, 0, t},
  PlotRange -> {{0, 2}, {-1, 1.5}}], {t, 0, 2}]         (*Correctly worked*)
(Q[t] + W[t]) /. sol /. t -> 0.7                        (*Correctly worked*)
Animate[Graphics[{{Circle[{t, (Q[t] + W[t]) /. sol // Evaluate},0.1]}}, PlotRange -> {{0, 2}, {-1, 1.5}}], {t, 0,2}] (*!! Didn't work*)

I tried for move a ball with radius of 0.1 with this Ndsolved functions but my efforts didn't be successful.
Answer: W[t_] := Max[Piecewise[{{-1, Q[t] <= 0}, {1, Q[t] > 0}}], 0];
Q[t_] := D[x[t], {t, 2}] + x[t];
sol = NDSolve[{Q[t] + x[t] == 1, x[0] == 1, x'[0] == 2}, {x, x'}, {t,
    0, 2}];
T = Table[
   Flatten[{t1, Q[t] + W[t] /. sol /. t -> t1}], {t1, 0., 2, .01}];

L = ListAnimate[
  Table[Graphics[{{Red, Circle[T[[i]], 0.1]}, {Green,
      Rectangle[{-.1, -1.2}, {2.2, -1.1}]}},
    PlotRange -> {{-.1, 2.2}, {-1.2, 1.5}}], {i, 1, Length[T]}]]


Why is my Nikon DSLR's meter stuck at 0 in manual mode?

Question: I use a Nikon D7000. I've been practicing Manual mode. Everything was fine until today. For some reason the meter won't move. It's stuck to the right of the "0" along the meter. I reset with the green buttons, switched lenses. Nothing works. Is it a setting that I locked it into?   I've watched videos and researched it but can't figure out why it won't move.
Comment: Any chance you enabled Auto ISO? That would allow the camera to compensate for other parameters. Otherwise just do a factory reset.
Answer: I have a D7000 as well and experienced the same issue back when I first got it.  In my case, having Auto ISO enabled was the culprit, and disabling that solved my problem immediately.
Otherwise, I'm confident a factory reset would also clear out the problem.


Why didn't Lord Shiva realize that he was beheading his own son?

Question: As Lord Shiva is himself one of the Trimurti, he must be a त्रिकालज्ञ (trikālajña) i.e., knower of past, present and future.
If he's a trikālajña, why didn't he know that he was going to behead his own son, Vināyaka (Ganesha)?
Comment: These are all symbolic stories. They shouldn't be taken literally.
Answer: This whole event is a series of interconnected Chain events. I'm here summarizing the chain events:
1) Boon to Gajasura:
Gajasura was a devotee of Lord Shiva and he got a boon that his head would be revered in future as described in the answer here.
2) Curse to Lord Shiva:
Lord Shiva once killed Surya and Kasyapa (father of Surya) cursed him as described in answer here.

He struck Surya with a trident and this made the entire world plunge into darkness. Surya was the sage Kashyapa's son and so, for this act, Kashyapa cursed Shiva. "Just as you pierced my son's chest with a trident, your son's head will be chopped off one day," said Kashyapa.

3) Son of Shiva-Shakti:
Ganesha (Vinayaka) was only son of Prakriti tatwa as made only by Parvati. Lord Shiva transformed Purush tatwa to Vinayaka from his Trishula while beheading him. And thus he philosophically became son of both Shiva and Shakti.
4) Removing Maila Buddhi:
Ganesha was formed from dirt/mud by Parvati. So his intellect had also became dirt formed intellect. As a result he couldn't recognise the Supreme Shiva and other Gods, Sages also. So, Beheading the head removed the dirt formed intellect and it also removed only Maya/Prakirti/Parvati formed intellect.
These all events described above are interconnected as Chain events. So, Beheading Vinayaka (Ganesha) by Lord Shiva was necessary.
Comment: @Chinmay Sarupria Parvati isn't completely Prakriti... she is conscious... complete Prakriti means Jada... so when she created Ganesha then he was alive as she also contain some portion of Purush tatwa as she is conscious...so Parvati is also able to add Purush tatwa.... but Shiva added fully Purush tatwa from his Trishula while beheading him...
Comment: Does boon to Gajasura haeve any scriptural basis? The answer you have linked is quoting from a random blog. AFAICT, the Gajasura demon mentioned in the Puranas is not a  Shiva devotee but a Rakshasa created by sages to fight against Shiva. According to other story, an elephant which was creating menace in Varanasi and _harassing Shiva bhaktas_. Shiva killed it and ripped its skin.
Comment: Well Vinayaka also had soul and soul is Purush Tatwa so he was always a son of both Shiva and Shakti.
Comment: @Chinmay Sarupria yes, also Shiva and Shakti are inseperable and there can't be place where only one exist... But I'm talking in relative perspective and tatwa point of view...
Comment: I don't understand, even in relative perspective, soul is there and body is 100% made of prakriti tatwa or am I wrong?
Comment: @Tejaswee Good answer! I have one question: What do you mean by *.. So his intellect had also became dirt formed intellect..*?
Answer: I would like to quote the following text hope this helps

The story goes that Parvati created a boy out of dirt from her body
  and appointed him to guard the doorstep. The first question that comes
  is how could Parvati, the Goddess Herself, have so much dirt? Parvati
  symbolizes the triguna sattva, rajas and tamas. The entire creation is
  made up of trigunas. The dosha or imperfections that originate out of
  the triguna is an obstruction for the functioning of Prakriti. That
  was the boy that Parvati created to stand guard at the door.Shiva is
  Shuddha Chaitanya, pure consciousness. Like the sun does not recognize
  darkness and cuts through it, Shiva does not recognize dosha and slays
  the impurity. But Prakriti cannot stay without impurity. So Shiva
  replaces the dosha with the head of an elephant, which symbolizes
  knowledge. Through knowledge, all the doshas or obstructions of
  Prakriti can be taken care of. This is the spiritual and metaphysical
  meaning of Ganpati being slain. So worshipping Ganpati as the remover
  of obstacles and the giver of gyana, knowledge is the most amazing
  depiction of the nature of consciousness.

For more info refer here
Because lord Ganesha was created with mud his buddhi(intellect) was dushit(contaminated) he didn't respected other gods & rishis who came and tried to tell him the truth that Lord Shiva was his father. So that's the reason Shiva cut his head and replaced it with the one of an elephant which is a symbol of knowledge.
The elephant whose head was cut and replaced with that of Lord Ganesha his name of Gajasura. You can search about him.
Comment: Despite the curse of Kasyapa Shiva did not had to cut his head off. He could just reason with him.
Answer: It was all a leela between Parvati,Siva and Vishnu in order to give Ganesa a primary place in worship, because as created, he was said to be of Tamasika nature:
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/shiva-purana-english/d/doc226136.html

O Nārada, on hearing your words, the great lord who grants benediction to his devotees became desirous of fighting with the boy.

He called Viṣṇu and consulted him. Then with a great army and the gods, He, the three-eyed lord, stood face to face with him.

After remembering the lotuslike feet of Śiva, the gods possessing great strength, kindly glanced at by Śiva and highly jubilant, fought with him.

Viṣṇu of great strength, valour and skill and possessing great divine weapons and Śivā's form fought with him.

Gaṇeśa hit all the chief gods with his staff. He hit Viṣṇu too, all of a sudden. The hero had been conferred great strength by the Śaktis.

O sage, all the gods including Viṣṇu were hit by him with the stick. They were turned back with their strength sapped.

O sage, after fighting for a long time along with the army and seeing him terrific, even Śiva was greatly surprised.

Thinking within himself "He has to be killed only by deception and not otherwise" he stayed in the midst of the army.

9-10. When lord Śiva who though devoid of attributes had assumed the attributive form was seen in the battle, when Viṣṇu too had come thither, the gods and Gaṇas of Śiva were highly delighted. They joined together and became jubilant.

Then Gaṇeśa the heroic son of Śakti following the course of heroes, at first worshipped (i.e struck) Viṣṇu with his staff, Viṣṇu who confers happiness to all.

12-13. "I shall cause him delusion. Then let him be killed by you, O lord. Without deception he cannot be killed. He is of Tāmasika nature and inaccessible." Thinking thus and consulting Śiva, Viṣṇu secured Śiva's permission and was engaged in the activities of delusion.

Vishnu had a strong role in the actual killing of Ganesa:

25-27. On seeing Gaṇeśa, Viṣṇu said—"He is blessed. He is a great hero of great strength. He is valorous and fond of battle. Many gods, Danavas, Daityas, Yakṣas, Gandharvas, and Rakṣasas I have seen. In the entire extent of the three worlds, none of them can equal Gaṇeśa in regard to brilliance, form, features, valour and other qualities."

Gaṇeśa, son of the Śaktis whirled the iron club and hurled it at Viṣṇu even as he was saying so.

After remembering the lotus-like feet of Śiva, Viṣṇu took up his discus and split the iron club by means of discus.

Gaṇeśa hurled the piece of iron club at Viṣṇu which was caught by the bird Garuḍa and rendered futile.

Thus for a long time the two heroes Viṣṇu and Gaṇeśa fought with each other.

Again the foremost among heroes, the son of Pārvatī took up his staff of unrivalled power remembering Śiva and struck Viṣṇu with it.

Struck with that unbearable blow he fell on the ground. But he got up, quickly and fought with Pārvatī's son.

Securing this opportunity, the Trident-bearing deity came there and cut off his head with his trident.

The Gods were worried Parvati might destroy creation and prayed to her:

O Mother of the universe, obeisance to you. Obeisance to you, O Śivā. Obeisance to you. O Caṇḍikā. Obeisance to you, Kalyāṇī.

O mother, you alone are the primordial Śakti. You are the eternal cause of creation. You alone are the sustaining power. You alone are the cause of dissolution.

O goddess, be pleased. Spread peace. Obeisance be to you. O goddess, the three worlds are agitated by your fury.

Brahmā said:—
35. The great goddess Pārvatī thus eulogised by you and other sages glanced at them furiously. She did not say anything.

Then the sages bowed at her lotus like feet and spoke to her in low voice with devotion joining their palms in reverence.

The sages said:—
37. O goddess, forgive, forgive. The final dissolution seems near at hand. Your lord is standing here. O mother, you see him.

What are we, the gods, Viṣṇu, Brahmā and others? We are only your subjects. We stand here with palms joined in reverence.

O great goddess, our guilts shall be forgiven. We are agitated and distressed. O Pārvatī give us peace.

Brahmā said:—
40. After saying this, the agitated and distressed sages stood in front of her with palms joined in reverence.

On hearing their words Pārvatī was pleased and she replied to the sages with her mind full of compassion.

The goddess said:—
42-43. If my son regains life there may not be further annihilation. If you can arrange for him an honourable status and position among you as the chief presiding officer, there may be peace in the world. Otherwise you will never be happy.

Siva often kills temporarily (like Daksha) and this was all a leela to remove tamas from Ganesa and make him worthy of worship.
Parvati tells the purified Ganesa

You are blessed and contented now. You will receive worship before all the gods. You will be free from distress.

Another example of a play-fight is Siva fighting Arjuna in the Kiratarjuneeyam fight only to purify Arjuna's body:
Mahabharata Critical Edition page 1195:

Tryambaka touched the immensely energetic Phalguna and everything that was impure in his body, was immediately destroyed.
Answer: This is a serious problem only if one takes this particular Puranic story seriously.
There are several Puranic stories about Lord Ganesha and his elephant head. These stories are:

STORY 1. Once Parvati, just for fun, prepared an image of a child with an elephant's head, out of the unguents smeared over her body and threw
it into the river Ganga. It came to life. Both Ganga and Parvati
addressed the boy as their child. Hence Lord Ganesha is known as
Dvaimatura, 'one who has two mothers';
STORY 2. Parvati prepared the image of a child out of the scurf from her body, endowed him with life and ordered him to stand guard before her
house. When Siva wanted to enter the house he was rudely prevented by
Ganesha. Siva became Rudra and got him beheaded. Seeing that Parvati
was inconsolable, Siva grafted an elephant's head on the body of the
boy and gave him life. Siva appointed this new-found son as the head
of all his retinues, who thus became 'Ganapati'.
STORY 3. He sprang from Siva's countenance which represents akashtattva (principle of ether). His captivating splendour made Parvati react
angrily and curse him, resulting in the elephant head; and
STORY 4. Ganesha was originally Krishna himself in the human form. When Sani, the malevolent planet spirit gazed at him, his head got
separated and flew to Goloka. The head of an elephant was subsequently
grafted on the body of the child.

[Hindu Gods and Goddesses by Swami Harshananda]
Which one of these stories is true? All four can't be true. The simplest position to take is that none is true. The common people many centuries ago did not understand the philosophical import and wanted some simple explanation of Ganesha's elephant head. The Puranic stories were written by various authors to give concrete and simple explanations to those people. These are tales of imagination and not to be taken literally.
Tales of Imagination

Brahma tells Narada "This brief account of the manifestation of the
Lord is what is called the Bhagavata. The Supreme Being Himself gave
the knowledge of it to me. I have also given to you a brief account of
the Lord's glories and attributes. You elucidate it with the help of
your imaginative power in a way that will generate devotion in the
mind of men for Sri Hari who is the soul and support of all."

Bhagavata Purana II.8.51-52
ANSWER: The answer to this question is that the incident didn't happen since Shiva didn't actually behead Ganesha. So there is no reason to doubt Shiva's omniscience.
Unnecessary complication has been introduced by claiming without any proof that these 4 stories are depicting events in 4 different kalpas. This proposal immediately raises several questions. Why should any author talk about events in previous kalpas when he is writing the text for the elucidation of people living in his kalpa? I am leaving aside the question as to how the author knew about any event in a previous Kalpa separated by billions or even trillions of years. What good is such a story about a previous kalpa doing for people living in the current kalpa? How does one know which story belongs to which kalpa? Is there any exact reference that says that these stories belong to different kalpas?
Puranas were written for the elite by the elite. They answered questions that the educated of that time were asking. The simplest interpretation of these 4 stories is that the gents who wrote these stories did not know how to explain the elephant head iconography of Ganesa and came up with four wild inventions. Kalpa had nothing to do with these stories. If anyone wants to link these 4 stories with different kalpas then they better come up with an exact reference that explicitly links these stories with different kalpas.
Spiritual interpretation of the beheading
Professor John Grimes gives an interesting spiritual interpretation of the beheading.

Ganesa was to guard his mother's door. He is known as the gatekeeper
as well as the lord of beginnings. His beheading took place at a
threshold as all beginnings do. Every beginning is the end of the old
and the beginning of the new. In order to transcend the beginning and
ascend to the Divine, one must "lose one's head", that is, give up
one's egotistical viewpoint. One must be both a victor and a victim.
One is a victim because one's head must be lost. One is a victor
because the new is a new beginning, a divine manifestation.

Ganapati Song of the Self, Chapter 4, Fingers pointing at the moon, by John Grimes
Comment: Surely you can't think that all four of these stories can be true?
Comment: Why four stories all can't be true? they must have happened during different Kalpas @PradipGangopadhyay
Comment: This doesn't answer my question. Your conclusion has no meaning at all. All puranic stories are symbolic and should be explained that way. Saying it "not true" at all is not good imo.
Comment: Why complicate matters? You must have heard of Occam's razor.
Comment: We are not complicating matters they already are and we can't simplify them as per our whims. Lord Ganesha must have lost his head in different ways during different Kalpas.@PradipGangopadhyay
Answer: The Devi Bhagvatam Purana paints a general picture and understanding of why these events happen. It happened because of the Daivika-Vidhana (दैविक-विधान). Everything is pre-ordained and pre-determined as a part of the eternal kaal-chakra.
Although, the beheading of Ganesha is not mentioned, we may generalize the following excerpt to all these similar events.
After god Vishnu was apparently beheaded with string of Saranga bow, all gods started lamenting. And devaguru Brihaspati and Brahmâ explain the importance of Daiva (दैव).

Chapter 5, Book 1, DeviBhagvatam
At this juncture, seeing Śiva and the other Devas crying, Brihaspati,
supremely versed in the Vedas, consoled them thus :-- "O highly
fortunate one! what use there will be in thus crying and repenting? it
ought you now to consider the means that you should adopt to redress
your calamities. O Lord of the Devas! Fate and one's own exertion and
intelligence are equal; if the success comes not through Fate (Luck or
chance) one is certainly to show one's prowess and merit".
42-46. Indra said :-- Fie to your exertion when, before our eyes, the
head of Bhagavān Viṣṇu Himself has been carried off! Fie, Fie to your
prowess and intelligence! Fate is in my opinion, the supreme.
Brahmā said :-- Whatever, auspicious or inauspicious, is ordained
Daiva (Fate), every one must bear that; no one can go beyond the
Daiva. When one has taken up a body, one must experience pleasure and
pain; there is no manner of doubt in this. See, in long-past days, by
the irony of Fate, Śambhu severed my head; His generative organ, too,
dropped down through curse. Similarly Hari's head has, to-day, fallen
into the salt ocean. By the influence of time, Indra, the Lord of
Sachi, had thousand genital marks over his body, was expelled from
Heaven and had to live in the Mānas sarovar in the lotuses and had to
suffer many other miseries.
47-50. O Glorious ones! When such personages have suffered pains, then
who else is there in the world, that dues not suffer! so you all cease
sorrows and meditate on the Eternal Mahāmāyā; who is the Mother of
all, who is supporter of all, who is of the nature of Brahmāvidyā (the
Supreme Knowledge) and who is beyond the Gunas, who is the Prime
Prākriti, and who pervades the three Lokas, the whole universe, moving
and unmoving; She will dispense our welfare.
English Translation by Swami Vijñanananda

Thus, as per the Devi Bhagvatam, all these similar events (like beheading, curses, boons, wars, etc.) involving Tridevas and other gods like Ganesha, Indra, etc., it all happen due to the great delusion of the Supreme Parashakti, Mahāmāyā, who's the prime mover of the fate and destiny of anyone who has taken up a body, whether divine or non-divine.
Thus, basis the above excerpt from the Devi Bhagvatam Purana, we can say, that despite being a trikālajña, god Shiva beheaded his son, due to the great delusion of the Supreme Goddess Mahāmāyā, under whose control every mobile and immobile being and thing is said to be.
Other explanation maybe that it was all a great-leela (लीला) of everyone involved in the incident.
Comment: This doesn't answer my question. You're just making a conclusion, that's all.


Etiquette of asking an old question again

Question: Don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I have a question that was asked by someone else back in 2015 How to bulk renew membership. There have been some suggestions that would not be answers in my case. I added a comment to see if the original person who asked had found a comment, but he hasn't responded. Possibly not still active. I don't think that my comment would bring it to anyone else's attention. Is it reasonable to ask the question again? I think its of reasonably wide interest.
Comment: Related: [How do I get attention for one of my own questions without a good answer?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/7046) (while the title stated "my own questions", the answer can be applied by any users. That said, don't post the same question because it will just be closed as a dupe to the older question)
Answer: You can ask a similar question providing you reference the old question and make it clear why you are asking again.
Eg:

"This similar question (xxx) was asked previously but it does not address my situation because ..."
"This question (xxx) was asked in 2015. Are there any new ways to solve this problem?"


How can I restore a Whatsapp backup while retaining stuff from after the backup?

Question: For a number of reasons, I just deleted my entire Whatsapp images folder by accident. I backed Whatsapp up yesterday morning, but yesterday night I had a sentimental conversation with a friend about some issues I've been having, and I don't want to lose that either. How can I go about doing this without losing that conversation?
Comment: No you can't(realisticaly).  Recovering data from a deleted folder on a phone might result in a couple bits being recovered with the right tools but not even a sentence of the conversation.
Comment: If that doesn't work then, how can I restore a backup if Whatsapp came with my phone, and thus can't be uninstalled, only disabled?
Comment: your terminology/phrasing does not make sense to me.  I'll take I guess what you mean.  When you restore your phone to factory settings the default apps are not touched at all only the android OS.  If you take to a professional shop $100+ dollars they might be able to recover something but highly unlikely.
Comment: I believe you are wanting to merge to backups is that right?  Your question is not clear.
Answer: You actually could have a perfect backup that was automatically created after night conversation and before accidental erasing. Whatsapp creates local backup files at 2 am (up to 7 states), also it saves data to Google Drive (if configured). Check dates of files in sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases as well as in Drive interface (again, if Drive backup was configured).
If automated backup was not performed in a desirable timeframe you will need to mess with local backup files and apps reinstallations to get your old, yesterday state, copy images to safe folder and restore a backup with night conversation.
Official FAQ states that you can force an app to restore a particular backup file:

To restore a less recent local backup
Your phone will store up to the last 7 days worth of local backup
  files (Google Drive will only have the most recent one). If you wish
  to restore a local backup which is not the most recent one, you will
  need to do the following:

Download a file manager app.
In the file manager app, navigate to sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases. If your data is not stored on the SD card, you may see "internal storage"
  or "main storage" instead of sdcard.
Rename the backup file you wish to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 to msgstore.db.crypt12. It is
  possible that an earlier backup may be on an earlier protocol, such as
  crypt9 or crypt10. Do not change the number of the crypt extension.
Uninstall WhatsApp.
Install WhatsApp.
Tap Restore when asked.

Sources:
https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/20887921/?category=5245251
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en


Distinct footnotes at the same place

Question: This may be a basic question, but I'm having troubles figuring it out. I'd like to have two distinct footnotes at the same place in the text. However what i get is that the footnote numbers in the text are merged together, instead of separated by commas (e.g. 23, instead of 2,3). How do I fix this?
Comment: Can you give a MWE please?
Answer: Please use the package footmisc. The specific implementation is \usepackage[multiple]{footmisc}, which will comma-delineate a series of footnotes.
Answer: You can use the footmisc package with the multiple option to obtain this output. Here is a minimal example:

\documentclass{article}
\setlength{\textheight}{100pt}% Just for this example
\usepackage[multiple]{footmisc}% http://ctan.org/pkg/footmisc
\begin{document}
Here is some text with a footnote\footnote{Hello\ldots}\footnote{\ldots world.}.
\end{document}

Answer: For some reason, this did not do the trick for me in the actual document I am working on (though it does work when I try a simple example, not mixing it up with other packages).
Since I only have one such instance in the text, I can get away with inserting $^,$ between the footnotes, but I'm wondering why the footmisc didn't work out.
Comment: we're all wondering why footmisc doesn't work; since you don't provide an mwe, it's hard to guess.  are you using hyperref? -- footmisc predates the release of hyperref by several years, and the work to make option multiple work with hyperref just hasn't been done.  one alternative, if multiple footnotes are the only feature of footmisc that you need, is footnoterange, less than a week old on ctan (and claims to work with hyperref).

Distinct footnotes at the same place


How do I wire an MVH-150UI to a Peugeot 206?

Question: Its just flattening my battery and leaving car headlights on? Even used ISO an adapter. Stereo is staying on when I have ignition off.  Can someone tell me how to do this as don't really fancy paying £30 at Halfords to fit the radio!!
Comment: Thanks, its a pioneer mhv-150ui, been told to use iso adapter but still doesn't work!! Is this the adapter kit your talking about?
Comment: Well that has helped thank you if you can tell me how to upload a pic on here i can pop the pics up.
Comment: Well the adapter portion your talking about is exact to the picture you have shown..so the problem must stem from the wiring in the car as they are diff colours?! so i have got pics but doesn't give me option the upload on here!!
Comment: If you edit your post, you can add it by clicking on the small icon at the top center of the text box. It will look like a small rectangle with mountains in it. When you click on it, you'll get a dialog box with two radial selections, leave that part alone, and click on browse. You can then find it in your computer, select it, then click to upload. Make sure the pic is no more than 1kx1k ... don't know the max size, but you can have too big of one.
Answer: I'm not sure what your headlights have to do with an audio system? If you are fitting the audio system yourself, you need to find a switched source of power, one which comes on when you turn the key. The best way to fit this is to buy the adapter kit for it, which will give you a wired adapter which plugs into your car and aligns with the color coding on your radio wiring. This will get you your switched power lead.
Take a look at this image.

What I'm talking about is the adapter portion which is hanging down. I have no clue what this one is for, but you should have on similar. If you do have one and the end is attached to the car plug, I'd look to see to make sure the wires are aligned correctly. The main power in for your Peugeot should be switched, so the correct adapter will associate this power lead to your head unit.


What are the differences between the Unified Process and the Rational Unified Process?

Question: Are there any differences between the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and the Unified Process (UP)? What does "Rational" mean, in this context?
Comment: I thought Rational is the name of a company?
Answer: The Unified Process is a generic name for a family of process models that meet a number of criteria, such as being iterative and incremental, driven by use cases, and focus on addressing risks early. It defines four project phases: Inception, Elaboration, Construction, and Transition.
The Rational Unified Process is a refinement of the Unified Process that was created by Rational Software (now owned by IBM). It uses a series of software tools along with a process framework to define how to carry out the activities needed to run a software project, yet still provides a framework for tailoring to meet an organization's (or team's) needs.
Other refinements on the Unified Process include Scott Ambler's Agile Unified Process and the Eclipse Foundation's Open Unified Process.
Comment: well, to be fair, and based on the chronology exposed in USDP by the authors of UP, first RUP was created and then UP was published as a generalization of it (anyway, it's the same people behind both).
Comment: It seems I started writing my answer while you were writing yours, but I posted first (didn't get the familiar notification that another answer was up while writing). Just a clarification, wouldn't dare submit and answer saying exactly the same as another answer (and in this case *less*). I've deleted mine, as yours is more informative (and mine a little snarky).
Comment: Yeah. I got the notification that there was another answer posted as I was getting the links to the AUP and OUP. I figured since I was almost done, I was just going to post it anyway.


Scan the visa or the bio page at the ePassport Gates at Manchester Airport?

Question: My girlfriend from USA is traveling to the UK through Manchester next month. She has a visit visa in her passport for travel since she was refused entry last year. Will she have to scan the MRZ on her visa page, or the bio page? Also, will the gate even work for her given her previous immigration issues?
Comment: I can't see how it would possibly hurt to use the gates.
Comment: I think the passport data page, but I would also expect there to be a stop indicator on her passport and the gate to reject her (the first time). She should ask the IO about the stop indicator affecting future travel if the gate rejects her.
Comment: Do you think she should use the line for the gates or just line up through regular immigration and get manually inspected?
Answer:
Will she have to scan the MRZ on her visa page, or the bio page?

Your girlfriend will need to scan the MRZ  bio page as that is the way the computer will read the information, using the chip on that page.

Also, will the gate even work for her given her previous immigration issues?

There is a possibility she will be sent to the passport control officers, there is no harm trying to use the gates.
Comment: Good point about the passport bio page: the key to decrypt the data on the chip is composed of various elements from that page.  I haven't used one of these machines yet, so I don't know whether there will also be an opportunity to scan the visa, but it seems possible.
Comment: @phoog Are those machines stand-alone, or connected to a database? If the latter, once the machine sees the identifying information, it should know about the visa
Comment: @PatriciaShanahan good point.  They must be connected to a database: how else would they flag people with stop indicators?
Comment: The previous issues would have been considered prior to granting the visa, so there is a good chance of the gate working.
Comment: @PatriciaShanahan In my experience, and based on what others on this site have said, stop flags are not removed until after entry. The ECO who approves the visa does not remove them (possibly they can't?), it is done by a border officer, which means that someone with an adverse immigration history will always be sent to the "waiting area" at the border when entering for the first time after their removal or refusal, while the border officer apparently goes to a secure terminal where they can read the full immigration history and remove the flag.
Answer: One should only scan the front of the plastic card/page, like the immigration agents do.
The front of the card has 2 or 3 lines of OCR text, this text is used as a password to read the info of the RDIF chip in the plastic card.
Having this security ensures that no one can read that info by e.g. tapping a phone against your pocket/backpack.

There's an excellent Android app called ReadID that can read your passport the same way the eGates do. It will even verify the digital signature of your passport against known digital passport issuers (countries certificate authorities). The signature is just like those used for HTTPS.

Also, the visa is digital, you don't actually need the stamp, though most countries still require it.
Comment: What plastic card?
Comment: @MJeffryes I suppose that's a reference to the fact that many passports now have the biodata page on a plastic card.  As you may be aware, US passports don't have this; they just have a plastic layer on top of the (otherwise paper) biodata page.  As to "the visa is digital, you don't actually need the stamp," that isn't true legally speaking.  If the visa is not present in the passport, it is necessary to apply for a new visa.
Comment: @phoog neither do UK ones which is why I think this is not universal advice
Comment: @MJeffryes do you not have *any* plastic in your passport?
Comment: @MikaelDúiBolinder The biodata is laminated somehow, but I wouldn't describe it as a plastic card because it isn't at all rigid.


Custom URL redirect to Community Page

Question: I have a custom url companyname.com. I have a community with the url mydomain.force.com. Now when I enter the custom URL in the browser, it should redirect to community login page. Is there any way to achieve this scenario.
Please suggest
Answer: This is possible as standard functionality, but you have to follow these steps:

Setup the domain in Salesforce
Get the CNAME record updated in the DNS to point to the Salesforce Org URL for the community
Create a Certificate Signing Request in Salesforce for the domain and get a Certification Authority to issue a certificate
Upload the certificate in Salesforce
Setup the Custom URL for the community using the domain

See SF documentation link
These cannot be made active in a sandbox environment, but can be setup in a sandbox and deployed. Therefore the sandbox URL will always be including a force.com domain.
Comment: It can't be activated in a Sandbox environment, and I have had to do this directly into production a number of times.
Comment: Thanks @DaveHumm....Your answer guided me to the best route possible....I have a small doubt here...
I have gone through the link that you've provided above...So here in [domain].[18 character orgId].live.siteforce.com, under [domain], do i need to provide link of my org domain(mydomain.force.com) or Community domain(partnerdomain.com)? Please suggest
Comment: And Can we perform this in QA?
I have read somewhere that this can only be done in Prod..But before deploying to Prod, we need to test this in QA...Please suggest

Custom URL redirect to Community Page


Is there an application like OneNote for Mac/iOS?

Question: I'm looking for a notetaking app that is similar to Microsoft's OneNote. The main feature that I'm looking for is being able to tap/click anywhere on the document to add a text block, unlike most text editors. I'd like it to be more like handwritten notes, where you can write anywhere onscreen, rather than being forced to used tabs/spaces.
I am also looking for a Mac/iOS syncing experience, but I'm open to almost any suggestions.
Answer: Microsoft has released a version of OneNote for Mac. It is available in the App Store for users with OS X 10.9 or later.
Comment: It's extremely limited in features however and restricts your files to only SkyDrive. In my opinion it's a complete failure
Comment: @SteppingHat the 2019 versions are seriously upgraded since you evaluated them. Have you had the chance to re-evaluate the app?
Comment: @bmike Alright so I may have been a bit harsh. While at the time it was very limited, the app has come a long way and is now my daily note taking software. There are still quite a few features that the Windows version of OneNote has that the Mac version doesn't but I don't find myself getting stuck trying to do simple tasks anymore.
Comment: Wonderful @SteppingHat - thanks for the update. Office 2011 clearly was bad for tons of reasons and I still find I need a modern Firefox and web apps to get some features on the Mac, but at least the v16 and 2019 native apps are in the same ballpark of parity now instead of (very) distant cousins.
Answer: Outline 2.0, released on the Mac App Store ($40) in December 2013, seeks to mimic OneNote and even sync with OneNote notebooks hosted on SkyDrive. It has a companion iPad app too, sold separately on the App Store. Polarized set of reviews though.
Also, Microsoft Office 2014 for Mac may include OneNote.
Outline (MAS) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outline/id604802021?mt=12
Comment: Thanks! Kinda pricey but I'll check it out!
Answer: The OneNote app (version 16.x) can be downloaded for O365 subscribers

https://portal.office.com

If for some reason, you need a really old version, you can try installing the unsupported Office 2011 Mac, which has One Note inbuilt. While installing you can choose to install only one note, excluding the rest.
Answer: You can try:
- Curio 8 or
- Growly notes or <- This is closest to Microsoft one note
- Circus Ponies Notebook
Answer: Growly Notes is the closest program I have seen compared to OneNote.
But if you're like me and want the real thing, I've setup a very lightweight virtual machine dedicated just for one note. VMWare Fusion has a feature called unity mode which integrates the Windows application windows into OSX's native window managing functions such as Mission Control just like it's a Mac app in itself.
The only downside is that VMWare uses quite some power even when idling and drops a 13" Late 2012 MBP's advertised 7 hour battery life down to 5 hours and starting up VMWare takes up to 30-60 seconds for me on average so it's kinda annoying to start up all the time.
But as mentioned before Growly Notes is the next best thing to the real deal. It's up to you as to what you really prefer.
Comment: Very good. I'm looking for freeform…but it's missing the syncing…I'll wait a little, then accept this. Thanks so much!!


Peripherals power usage

Question: I am trying to measure the power usage of a Raspberry Pi peripheral, say a temperature sensor, and compare it with wall power input to the Raspi. Is there a device that measures the power a peripherals uses?
Comment: Just to clarify for others, when you say "power" do you mean Wattage? Or volts?
Comment: I mean.. if he has anything other than 3.3v on the Pi then he will have a serious problem. So yea.. he want to measure how much Power (W) the temperature sensor is using.
Comment: Just in case you missed it in the lower comments. Ohms law `amps (A) X volts (V) = power (W)`
Answer: Your measurements depend on how you have everything connected. Lets assume you are using the GPIO pins. Using figures from the original Pi they say a MAX of 16mA per pin and a total MAX of 51mA for all pins.
So the answer is easy. The maximum Power (W) your temperature sensor will use is 16mA (0.0016A) x 3.3v is ~0.005w
But then again you can just look up in the product technical sheet what current it is rated for. Really.. you should have checked before just plugging it directly to GPIO.
The last way to do it is like they taught us in school. Use a multimeter that has Amp mode, wire it in series and it will show you the amps. And yet again using ohms law - amps X voltage = watts (power)
Comment: That isn't ohms law ;-)
Comment: The real definition is too complicated for anybody to understand. But fair enough. It's based on ohm's formula
Answer: I do not think the pi can do this on its own. You would have to use a separate module that can be hooked up to it to do so. But all component/module datasheets do come with a standard in use and not in use power consumption. You can easily time the usage and such and make a database or by other means record it. then, simple make some calculations.
Comment: datasheets contain information about Amps drawn when in various states. In this case on and off.. but like GPS modules have several power states. Some things can handle variable voltage input but then the datasheet tells you the internal voltage used.. which is typically now a days 3.3v.. sometimes 5v for IC type things. Ohms law (this is getting boring)   `amps (A) X volts (V) = power (W)`

Peripherals power usage


SP Objects that need to be disposed

Question: I know that we need to dispose of SPSite and SPWeb objects, especially in scenarios where we instantiate them or don't get them from context.
Other than these, which other objects in the SP Object Model should be disposed of?
Should we dispose of objects like SPFarm, SPWebServiceCollection, SPWebService, SPWebApplication, SPList, SPListItem, SPUser, SPGroup and so on? Or we need to dispose of only SPSite and SPWeb? This doesn't seem to be clearly documented. Please help.
Note: Though the below link talks about a few, it doesn't seem to be covering the list, which I have asked.
Can you provide a list of objects that needs to be disposed in SharePoint?
Comment: The answers there do include all objects you should dispose, hence your question is not really relevant
Answer: As a short answer regarding SPListobject.
`SPList` objects cannot be disposed

SP Objects that need to be disposed


Monitoring best practice for thresholding errors on an interface?

Question: When monitoring interface errors, what percentage of traffic should you set your 'critical' threshold to according to best practices and does it depend on the interface type (T1, Ethernet etc)? It would be a huge bonus if you can explain the justification for the particular percentage. I've found a few thread comments on various sites that mention 1%, but with no real justification.
Answer: Ethernet standard officially allows 10^-12 bit-error-rate, while in practice the hardware meet much better BER than which standard demands.
You should also be able to bing for 'SQA' (Service Quality Assurance) or 'SLA' (Service Level Agreement), some companies publish them, you could use them to check what your competitors are offering and offer something to that level.
Our SQA states to customers that 0.02% is minor fault (we will fix if ticket is opened), which I think is quite large packet loss for fibre connection, but same SQA covers also DSL so we didn't want to be too aggressive with it. So far this has been sufficient to customers, but we are prepared to reduce the number if it is hurting sales.
There are several bingable tools online, where you can check how much packet loss hurts TCP, which can be useful information when deciding what is acceptable loss for your application/product:

http://wand.net.nz/~perry/max_download.php
http://www.switch.ch/network/tools/tcp_throughput/index.html
Comment: I guess I'm looking for a more pragmatic viewpoint and not a sales viewpoint. I've found that what Sales sales isn't always what Ops can deliver. If you can adjust your threshold because it will help sales, then I feel like it's kind of arbitrary to begin with as it's based on customer perception instead of practical expectations of the technology.
Comment: It's hard to give very technical answer, without knowing application. Different applications of IP are comfortable with different packet-loss level. If you are curious how packet-loss affects TCP transfer, you can use those two URLs to calculate it. If you're transferring say multicast UDP stream of video, then 1% is too much.
Answer:
How long to generate traffic?
Ethernet/SONET networks are often deployed with GBICs,SFPs,or XFPs.Depending on the quality of the GBICs,SFPs,and XFPs, the network may havea guaranteed error rate of 10-12 to 10-15. For a standard GigE network at an error rate of 10-12, the user will experience a few errors a day. At an error rate of 10-15, the user will experience about one error a week. A 15-minute error-free test should be run to confirm that the network is properly provisioned and that the circuit is capable of handling the traffic. Longer tests offer more statistical information into the quality of the circuit and shorter tests offer less information.

Source:
For 10-Gigabit Ethernet there is a BER recommendation of 10^-13 to acheive the same number of errors per day as for Gigabit Ethernet.
Source:
Some other sources say 10^-12 for 10GE. If you set it to both 10^-12 for both GE and 10GE that would probably be a good number.
Answer: 1% loss on a 10g link can be a huge problem these days for many network devices.  If you're looking at inside a rack / datacenter, you should really be trying to minimize the instances of packet loss / errors within your network.
Errors can also be things like switches turning into hubs by accident (Dell 55xx switches have a bug in them in some firmware versions that disables their mac learning after 49.5 days)
- One reason we caught it was because we had been tracking the links over a long time and got flooded with traffic for MAC's we didn't have on our switch.
Also for those with AC or other lines installed in a tray, you might see some increased error rates, which might help prove to management that you should really re-locate some of the cable in the plenum or upgrade to fiber lines for these runs.


How can I avoid asking duplicate questions?

Question: I always search to find whether my question is a duplicate or not before asking the question on Stack Overflow. But often I cannot find anything (maybe this is a language problem) and I ask my question. Then someone finds a duplicate question of my question and votes to close mine. So how can I avoid asking a duplicate question?
Comment: Don't feel too bad if your question is closed as a duplicate. You'll be helping others find answers too, by giving Stack Overflow, and by extension, search engines a different spelling of the same problem.
Comment: Besides searching (which you've done) it's also a matter of "experience". Some of us (me included) have spent far too much time here. So we have seen some questions come by more often. That makes it a lot easier to find the duplicate.
Comment: @YannisRizos I think the OP meant he wanted to avoid asking duplicates. (i.e. have better luck finding them). I've rephrased the question to reflect that.
Comment: What is there to solve? Your question will be closed as a duplicate of the earlier question, and that's just that.
Comment: @Bart Thanks for editing my post.
Comment: as you type for a question it will be suggesting similar questions
Answer: The only way to really avoid asking duplicate questions is to find them. You might think "Yes Captain Obvious, that's what I'm asking. How do I find them?". In all honesty, that is not always easy. (Have a look through my questions here on Meta. There are a couple of dupes. Even though I looked) Especially if there is a language gap or you don't know the exact terms to search for, finding the dupe might be hard. Just do the best you can, but don't worry about the occasional duplicate.
Duplicates are not always such a bad thing. Sure, they should most likely be closed or merged, but as Martijn also indicated, they help other users with a similar phrasing as yours find the duplicate question. So in a sense, you're helping others.
And the more you hang around here, the easier it will be for you to find the duplicate. Especially if you're active here on Meta, or within a particular tag, you'll see questions come by of which you know they've been asked before. That knowledge will help you to find duplicates more easily, as happened in the case of your question here on Meta.
So do the best you can to find them. But if on occasion you don't manage to, don't worry too much about asking a duplicate question. If that doesn't happen for the majority of questions you ask, you'll be just fine.
Comment: Ironically, it is easier for experts to find duplicates than novices seeking answers, because experts know which terms are most significant, and the synonyms of significant terms, and which concepts are related.
Answer:
But often I cannot find anything (maybe this is a language problem) and I ask my question. Then someone finds a duplicate question of my question and votes to close mine.

This is OK, and also shouldn't be considered surprising. Remember it's not your duplicate-finding ability versus someone else's duplicate-finding ability; it's instead your duplicate-finding ability versus the combined duplicate-finding ability of EVERYONE ELSE PUT TOGETHER. Put this way, it's clear that the latter is going to be more effective than the former!
The engine itself tries to offer something in between, something better than the asker alone, and it often works - many's the time when I have entered a question title and body just to get the automated possible-duplicate finder to find the dupe for me - after searching hasn't worked, of course. But there will always be times when we ourselves can't find it, but one of the thousands of other SO users can.


What is the Neupert Effect?

Question: This effect is frequently discussed in the context of solar time series. In particular, it a relationship between soft x-ray (thermal emission) and hard x-ray (nonthermal emission) from the Sun.
Answer: The Neupert Effect describes the commonly observed phenomenon that hard X-rays occur predominantly during the rise phase of soft X-rays during a solar flare, as illustrated by the graph below:

In the graph, the first peak is that of the hard X-rays, which you can see occurs during the rise of the other line which represents the soft X-rays.
Source:

The Neupert Effect - Solar Physics at Montana State University
Answer: Following the previous answer stating that the HXR emission occurs during rise phase of the flare as evidenced by the full-Sun SXR flux observed i.e. by GOES in 1-8 Angstrom, I would add that the HXR maximum is typically observed during the strongest increase of the SXR flux, i.e., during d(flux_SXR)/dt = max.
Answer: What's more, the Neupert effect is often stated that the hard X-rays look like the time derivative of the soft X-rays.  The physical significance of that is it suggests that the presence of hard X-rays relates directly to the energization of soft X-ray gas.  It supports the common model that hard X-rays are a byproduct of particle acceleration, and the accelerated particles deposit heat that gradually leaks out as soft X-rays.

What is the Neupert Effect?


Idiom for being stubborn about an opinion

Question: Is there an idiom for the action when someone holds tightly onto his opinion?
Like you keep to try convincing that person again and again but he keeps that opinion?
Comment: "Bull-headed" is, I think, slightly less derogatory.
Comment: "Pig-headed" is probably the most common term.
Comment: "Stiff-necked" is an idiom that might fit the bill.
Answer:
"He/she dug his heels in"

is often used to convey a specific act of stubbornness or defiance.
Or, if it is specific to the fact the person seems unwilling to hear what you are saying:

"I tried to explain to them, but they are just tone deaf to my
  ideas"

(they are not really deaf; it is just a metaphorical way of saying that they refuse to listen).
Answer: Stubborn as a mule and obstinate as a mule may convey the idea:

Cliché very stubborn. (*Also: as ~.) I tried to convince Jake to go to the doctor, but he's as stubborn as a mule. For four years, Henry pestered his parents to let him learn the trumpet. They tried to talk him into some other, quieter instrument, but he was stubborn as a mule, and now he has a trumpet.
Comment: Thanks, but it's not about the person who is stubborn, rather on the action of stubbornness
Comment: You mean sort of 'to refuse to listen'?
Comment: Yes something like that
Comment: Wouldn't be stubborn or obstinate describe 'the action'?
Comment: No, stubborn describes the person itself, what I'm asking about is something that describe the act of stubborness
Answer: The phrase whim of iron has been used to describe a stubbornness that lacks a reasonable basis.
It i attributed to Oliver Herford (December 3, 1863 – July 5, 1935), an American humorous poet and illustrator. Wikiquote
Answer: A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest was introduced by singer/songwriter Paul Simon in 1969 in the song titled The Boxer. This phrase or some variation might meet your need.
Answer: Would the word be: intransigency. As defined by MW:

characterized by refusal to compromise or to abandon an often extreme position or attitude : UNCOMPROMISING

See also Thesaurus.com.
Answer: "Stuck in his ways" is what I often use to describe someone inflexible and kind of adamant.
Answer: Not sure if 'dogmatic' would suit your purpose.  As a metaphor, people also use 'cockroaches' to ideas that would never go away and keep coming back.
Answer: For this concept, hard-headed is useful and fairly self-explanatory.
Answer: The Middle English version of stubborn carried the sense of "untamable, implacable," and there's still a hint of that in how it is used today.

Few suggestions:
  Unbend (verb) means 'to change from a bent position, to straighten', and also 'to relax from stress or severity'.
  By contrast, the adj. unbending normally means 'unyielding, inflexible;

Unbending- obstinate and stupid. (MW)
Inflexible- in the sense of not making concessions. (MW)
Answer: I suggest you use "headstrong" or "strong willed."
Ideally, you want to refrain from the use of cliches or out of date metaphors. Also its not necessary to use "intransigency" when a common phrase is available.
Answer: I would go for closed-minded (or close-minded)

close-minded (comparative more close-minded, superlative most close-minded)
  unreceptive to new ideas or information; not open to any agreement.

If someone will not change their mind, no matter what, then you can call them closed-minded.
Answer: You can also use resistant or resistance depending on how you mean stubborn.
Lexico defines resistant:

Offering resistance to something or someone.

'some of the old Churches are resistant to change'


this tool does not support the current operating system

Question: when I tried to install the prerequisite of sharepoint 2016, it does not do and retures the error "this tool does not support the current operating system." I have SQL 2016 SP1 installed.
Comment: what's the current operating system ?
Comment: do you have internet connection on the server? and also what Windows server version you are using?
Answer: SharePoint 2016 can be installed on

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter
Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

And with SQL Server

The 64-bit edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 RTM

For more details check Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2016
Also, based on this official article SharePoint 2013/2016 and SQL Server 2016 Supportability with SSRS fun facts! SharePoint is working with SQL 2016 – n that mean it's not supported with SQL 2016 SP1
Comment: I saw the disk requirement that indicates OS 80g and another 100g. I don't have so much space on my disk, could this be the reason of failure?
Comment: what's your curent disk capacity ?


Timing of meditation

Question: I meditate once a day in early morning, only. I have found that this time is very helpful in practicing meditation. I want to meditate at least twice a day. I want to know if time plays a role in practicing meditation ? If yes, then how? At what time does meditation practice become the most intense ?
Comment: This seems very broad. Could you elaborate on a specific question?
Comment: Are you asking when is the optimal time to meditate?
Comment: I tried making my question specific. @Matthew yes it is about asking the optimal time to meditate. Regards.
Answer: My morning meditation is my clearest meditation.
I also take quiet breaks a couple times a day. Sometimes I even fall asleep for 10-20 minutes. It renews me.
The evening meditation is important to me to clear away the unresolved issues in the day and prepares me for the rest that is so important for a stable mind in these uncertain and stressful times.
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/231282-zen-mind-beginner-s-mind

"So we should be concentrated with our full mind and body on what we
  do; and we should be faithful, subjectively and objectively, to
  ourselves, and especially to our feelings. Even when you do not feel
  so well, it is better to express how you feel without any particular
  attachment or intention. So you may say, "Oh, I am sorry, I do not
  feel well."  ― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal
  Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/62707.Shunryu_Suzuki

"When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The
  earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great
  Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole
  universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings.
  Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the
  eternal merit of Buddha."  ― Shunryu Suzuki

Some suggest that as long as we are aware we meditate. We do dishes aware, we walk aware, we shower aware. Certainly we have meditation practice but to expand that beyond a ritual and a routine is the opening to an extraordinary life.
Answer: Breaking the practice to 2 sessions is helpful and advisable. In case you experience any hindrances at a particular session you have at least the other session which might be more productive.

Timing of meditation


Is ISIS compatible with BSA?

Question: I want to get a Cyclone motor to install into my bike. My bike has a 120mm BSA bottom bracket, and the motor is available in Square Tape and ISIS varieties. Are these compatible?
Comment: Assuming you're looking at this   http://www.cyclone-tw.com/newkits1.htm   Why does it need a new bottom bracket at all ?
Answer: BSA refers to the diameter and thread pitch of the threaded bottom bracket shell in the frame. Square Taper and ISIS refer to the crank interfaces on the ends of the axle of cartridge bottom brackets (that fit in BSA threader shells).
See this Sheldon Brown page for info on cartridge bottom brackets (pictures near the bottom).
A quick look at the Cyclone page shows they make kits compatible with 120mm MTB BSA BB shells. If you are using your existing cranks you'll need the kit with the axle that matches your cranks.
Note there are 5 crank-axle interface standards: JIS an ISO square taper, 2 versions of Octalink and ISIS, so make sure you know what your cranks are if you plan to re-use them.
Comment: There is also powerspline.
Comment: @ArgentiApparatus your link to the Cyclone page is actually a YouTube link to something different.

Is ISIS compatible with BSA?


How to clean up spilled coke on carpet

Question: Today our son spilled coke on carpet while it spilled on the bedside as well, that is of cloth too. I tried soaking it in with a cloth but it is not working as carpet is still very wealthy.
Comment: What does "carpet is still very wealthy" mean?
Comment: Is your carpet a wall-to-wall durable carpet, or an area rug?
Answer: Get a spray bottle then put a warm water and a dish soap in it, and then spray it on the carpet, finally wipe it with a towel.
Answer: I would try this:

soak the respective area of the carpet with water, brush it mildly, to have the coke dissolve in the water;
remove the diluted coke with some cloth, until you cannot remove more;
use a vacuum cleaner on the area, to forcefully remove the small quantities remaining;
repeat until you are satisfied.

You may need to let the carpet get dry before you do it again, to be able to verify the quality of the result.
If there is a cleaning business in the area, have the carpet entirely washed. In my area, car washes are the preferred places for washing carpets, since they have everything already.

I just remembered a situation. I accidentally spilled something on the seats in my car. I applied the procedure described above, and everything turned out nice.

@wordsworth made a very good point in a comment. If you work carefully and the area is mostly dry, you can use standard (dry) vacuum cleaner. However, if the area is quite moist, or if you are not sure, you are better off using a vacuum cleaner designed for wet/dry cleaning, to avoid any damage and any accident.
Comment: This started well, but please DO NOT run a standard vacuum cleaner over liquid! This can destroy your vacuum cleaner. Only do this if you have one that is explicitly designed for wet/dry cleaning, such as a shop vac.

How to clean up spilled coke on carpet