Does AJAX need to use a server-side language such as PHP/ASP.NET/Java to access a database?

Question: Does AJAX need to use a server-side language such as PHP/ASP.NET/Java to access a database? Or some sort of web service tied to these languages? Or is AJAX able to communicate directly with the database?
Comment: AJAX is not a language, it's a term for accessing a remote resource trough JavaScript without needing to reload the page. Knowing that, how would something that's not a programming language of any sort be able to access anything or perform any kind of task that you need, such as database access?
Comment: Some databases, like Oracle, contain a heapload of features, some of them most likely would allow an Ajax application to directly fetch data from the database. That said, it doesn't seem to be a good idea to go that way.
Answer: Ajax cannot access any database, since it's not a language, nor a precise technology.
Do you mean javascript? I don't think js can open a socket directly to your sql server. Anyway, that would require your db server to be open wide, which is a bad idea in most cases.
You could also use the localstorage api, if all you need is storing a limited piece of data clint side.
Answer: It can if the database engine itself has public endpoints (a webserver) built into it. I don't know of any off the top of my head but some are not far off. For example, you already communicate with MongoDb via Json. This question implies that there is some middle layers that you can just drop into place that will expose those endpoints via Http. Also you can probably use OData plugins.
In any case it isn't easy and it is definitely a bad idea - how would you do authentication? Are you going to allow anyone over the internet to push data directly into your database? To delete things?
Comment: There is CouchDB.
Comment: There is a third-party RESTful interface for MongoDB called Sleepy Mongoose at http://www.snailinaturtleneck.com/blog/2010/02/22/sleepy-mongoose-a-mongodb-rest-interface/.
Answer: AJAX is client side. You need a server-side connection to the database. This is mostly done in PHP, ASP.NET or Java.
It is possible to connect to a database from the client, for example like this:
<code><script language="JavaScript" >

function getSubmit()
{
var LastName;
var Firstn = names.value ;

var cn = new ActiveXObject("ADODB.Connection");
//here you must use forward slash to point strait
var strConn = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source = C:/clientDB.mdb";
var rs = new ActiveXObject("ADODB.Recordset");
//var SQL = "INSERT INTO Customers(FirstName, Surname)"
//+ " VALUES ( '"+ names.value +"', '" + surname.value +"')";
var SQL = "select Surname, DOB from Customers where FirstName = '" + Firstn + "'";

cn.Open(strConn);
rs.Open(SQL, cn);
surname.value = rs(0);
DOB.value = rs(1);
//alert(rs(0));
rs.Close();
cn.Close();
}
</script>
</code>
source
But that will tell your visitors the username and password to the database. That's why a server side language is used.
Comment: Great example of what not to do!
Comment: Accepting SQL statements directly from a web client is just about the worst thing you could possibly do from a security standpoint.
Comment: It's not pure Ajax, either. An activeX is required.
Answer: First off, note that AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML.  Knowing that doesn't directly answer your question, but it is helpful.
Anyway, AJAX is an umbrella term for a certain use of a cluster of client-side technologies, so by definition it isn't accessing the server directly. I mean, the definition of the term is pretty much "using JavaScript in a webpage to communicate with the server". Although JavaScript itself can be used to program on the server, that is unusual and anyway the code is definitely still server-side (ie. JavaScript in the webpage is communicating with JavaScript on the server).
So the answer is that you don't access the database directly from client-side code and need code running on the server to access the database. The client-side code communicates with the server-side code using something like a RESTful API of GET/PUSH requests.
Answer: First of all, AJAX operates using HTTP protocol with JSON or XML payload. Most databases operate using proprietary protocols, with payload being SQL input, raw data as output.
Second, most web application provide security at application level. Giving direct access to the database would be huge security hole. With webapps, real security can only be achieved server side logic. In theory you could achieve this using views, stored procedures and having each webapp user as separate DB account. But that would be impractical, it's much easier and more efficient to do that with generic server-side language.


How durable are the Walkers in "The Walking Dead?"

Question: In 'The Walking Dead' universe how fragile are the walkers physically? How tough are their bodies/bones compared to living humans?
Comment: It depends on whats convenient for each scene :) This is absolutely inconsistent throughout the series.
Comment: related, not dupes: [If walkers get weaker over time can they eventually die off?](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/72148/5184), [Why do the Walking Dead zombies stop decomposing?](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/18033/5184)
Answer: In virtually all zombie fiction, including what I have seen of TWD television show and the comics, zombie bones are just as strong as the human's were at the time of reanimation.  An elderly woman who suffered from osteoporosis would still have brittle bones, but the majority of walkers would have typical bone strength.
As far as the durability of the rest of their bodies, zombies begin just as durable as the humans they once were.  As they age, they tend to deteriorate and decompose.  Any wounds do not heal, but instead become starting points for further damage.
In the late stages of decomposition, corpses tend to be relatively 'mushy', which would reduce a zombie's durability.  They do seem to decompose much more slowly than normal corpses, of course, so there's no telling how long it will take for them to reach that stage.
It is even conceivable that zombies in unusual environments (say, a hot & arid desert) would mummify. If they were to mummify or otherwise be preserved, their flesh could be hardened (like leather) and be slightly tougher.
Answer: If we're talking about TWD zombie bones as compared to real human bones, it seems clear that, although no one really talks about it, the zombies' bones, especially their skulls, are much less robust than our own.
As I said, no one seems to mention it on the show, but we can see it quite clearly. People routinely crush zombie skulls by stomping on them, hitting them with fairly flimsy objects, etc, and the most popular method of killing zombies is now the classic stab-in-the-head.
While I don't recommend that you try this at home, I can assure you that stabbing someone in the face won't usually result in the knife piercing their brain cavity.  The skull is surprisingly thick, robust, and extremely tough.  It is very difficult to penetrate it, especially with something like a knife or screwdriver.
The shape of the human skull - almost spherical in the upper portion - is such that a thrust with a knife is almost certain to be deflected and slide off to one side, which might inflict quite a bit of damage to the scalp and/or face, but the skull itself will suffer little or no damage whatsoever.  Even if you managed to strike the skull perpendicular to the forehead, for instance, the knife might very well stop short, creating a possibility that you will injure your own wrist, or even worse, that your hand will slip forward and be sliced open by the blade.
As for stomping on a head, this might cause a concussion in a human victim, but it probably wouldn't crush the skull outright.  And yet we see, again and again, zombie skulls popping open like grapes when the slightest amount of pressure is applied.
Moving on to blunt objects, such as baseball bats, rocks, clubs, and so on, again, the injuries inflicted upon zombies are far more serious than would be the case if the target was a living person.  Yes, of course a powerful blow from a bat would fracture a human skull, but fractures aren't enough to kill a zombie.  You need to destroy the brain, not merely create a few hairline fractures in the bone around it.  Once again, attacks which would only hurt a person are consistently shown to kill zombies.
In season 3, we saw a zombie in the prison, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, snap his own arm in half with very little effort.  This too would be almost impossible for a living human being to do.  And in the season 5 finale, Rick was able to slowly shove a gun barrel through the roof of a zombie's mouth and into the cranial cavity.  Also something that you couldn't do to a human without a tremendous amount of force.
We've also seen two zombies being killed by holding a relatively thin branch perpendicular to their heads, at about mouth-level, and pushing with very little force.  Branches less than an inch and a half in diameter are not as strong as a human skull.  The branch should break before the skull does.
And in season 4, when zombies began to fall through the ceiling of a big box store, a drop of about 15-20 feet, they literally popped when they hit the ground, almost like water balloons.  A person who fell the same distance would probably break some bones, but they certainly wouldn't explode.
All in all, we are never told that zombie skeletons are far less robust than human skeletons, but all the evidence points in exactly this direction.  Zombie bones are much more brittle and prone to breaking than human bones.
Update:
In a recent interview, Fear the Walking Dead showrunner Dave Erickson said that on that show, zombies will be more difficult to kill than they are on the original The Walking Dead series, because Fear the Walking Dead takes place at the beginning of the outbreak, whereas TWD is now at least a couple of years into it.  As a result, zombie skulls on FTWD are stronger and harder to penetrate than has been the case on TWD.

Erickson said one of Kirkman's notes for Fear was that the zombies be different than how they were first seen on the original show. With the early onset of the outbreak, skulls will still be hard and the point, Erickson said, is to see a character trying to stab a walker in the head and not be able to penetrate the skull. "The point was it's hard physically to kill somebody," he said.

In fact, we've already seen this happen, on the second episode of the new series.
Answer: Walkers start out as durable as the humans they once were, but over time they rot and become so easy to kill you can crush their skull with a gun.
Comment: Whilst this seems true do you have any evidence you could [edit] in to back it up?
Comment: Unfortunately as written this is basically a duplicate of Jeff's answer.
Answer: Basically if they keep getting fresh meat, they are fine, fine meaning can bite through human flesh easily and chase humans at brisk walking speed. If remain unfed, then chances are the walkers are weak enough to be harmless, meaning you can outrun them, trip them over and then go for their head. Compared to humans, they ain't that strong at all. But because they are dead, their flesh gets hardened more than usual due to lessened or no blood circulation due to heart not functioning and hardened flesh is much tougher than live flesh. So their strength is not insignificant but since their fleshes and bones are dead, they are weaker than human. A man can clench his fist so tight that he can punch so hard that it will make hole thru three walkers. Can a walker clench his muscles, tighten his biceps, make a long run with load? So compared to humans, they ain't much physically. But since their aim is not to wrestle you and win a WWE contest, all they care is to bite you. So if they are in multiple numbers, they are pretty overwhelming in physical perspective but only because they want to bite you. Even a human pitted against a pair of cats can be defenseless if all the cats want to do is bite the man.


Forecasting accuracy?

Question: Any thoughts on how far into the future to forecast? I'm working on forecasting our web monthly traffic in R. I'm using Holt-Winters and the dates Jan 2015 - Sep 2017. I want to forecast the next 12 months. I know the further I get out, the less accurate I am. Is there a good rule/ratio to follow? Thanks!
Answer: Probably your forecast should include both a point forecast and a variability/confidence band around the point. The variability band generally should be increasing as you forecast farther out into the future. If your forecast incorporates this band there should be a point beyond which your forecast becomes not useful because the variability becomes too high.
Answer: Long term forecast for web traffic is really quite difficult with full generality and I don't know of efficient method for long term prediction (several months). In many cases Holt-Winters can't even extract useful yearly cycles because you need several years, and anyway the world, trends and fashions change from one year to the next. Holt-Winters works very well on weekly cycles but not further as far as I have observed.
Also, it looks like every website or webpage behave quite differently, there is a lot of noise and a lot of impredictability.
Basically, the error will increase as you go forward, a bit like a basic random walk prediction (forecasted as $\hat y_{t+h}=y_t$).
If you have many time-series, you can calculate an average error for the method that you use, using predicted vs real (with a burn-in safety to ignore HW initializing).  However there is no reason that the observations of errors on the past of a single time-series will generalize to the future.
Maybe you can compare it to the standard error curve to the one obtained by "silly" forecast $\hat y_{t+h}=y_t$ and see how better you are.
Answer: Given that your coefficients are statistically significant and your model's errors have passed multiple "model specification tests" then I would obtain confidence limits by re-samplimg the model's errors via Monte Carlo while also incorporating the psi weights to possibly inflate the forecast variance due to auto-projection.
The width of the limits will suggest to you "how far ahead you can safely forecast"

Forecasting accuracy?


Taylor and Francis Manuscript Status "Under Review"

Question: Does this status mean it has been sent to referees? Or is could it still be desk rejected?
Comment: It can also be a desk reject. I speak from experience.
Answer: Under review implies it has been sent out for peer review and has passed the initial check. T & F primarily uses ScholarOne Manuscripts but also have their own electronic submission system. There may be slight differences between these but I would think they are set up similar to each other. I am familiar with the ScholarOne system.
Answer: From my experience, this status means that the manuscript has passed the in-house review and has been sent out to the reviewers.


Sudden drop in water pressure at sink furthest from entry of main water line

Question: I've had a sudden drop in water pressure in my kitchen sink, which happens to be roughly 40 or 50 feet from where the main water line enters the house.  My bathroom sink/shower seem to be fine, but they are much closer to the entry point.  The water company came out and "turned up" the water pressure, but to no avail.  Sometimes it's hardly more than a dribble out of our kitchen sink.  My basement is fully opened up, so I can trace the water lines throughout the house and have verified no leaks.  What should my next steps be?
Answer: This is normally caused by rust, scale or other debris clogging the aerator on the faucet, remove it and see if you have normal flow, note without the aeration the water stream will shoot like a garden hose so be prepared. If the flow is still reduced the orifices in the valve may be plugged by the rust, scale  or other debris. Washer less faucets tend to have this problem more often than standard valves.
To fix a washer less turn the supply lines off remove the handle and cartridge , I put a bowl over the fitting and turn the cold on for a few seconds then the hot to purge anything in the lines out. Sometimes it is easy to clean the cartridge or plate other times a replacement is needed, if you just clean it is a good idea to change out the o rings with new ones many times they are color coded but if not they are standard sized and can be replaced with generic buna o rings.
These are the 2 places I have found problems that cause low flow on many occasions both with city water and well water systems.
Comment: @clwhoops44  The issues Ed mentioned are definitely still likely. +
Comment: I have seen scale and rust on 100% copper lines other debris like sand bits of Teflon tape are likely in newer construction even on a well with 100% copper in the house guess what the well casing is , rusty metal! On a city water system many of the valves and pipes are usually cast.  A washerless faucet is one that is usually a single handle. There is a cartridge or valve plate with 2 small holes that seal with o rings (not with washers as single handle screw type valves have).  I have seen this issue many times in my own homes plus remodels we purchased for "flipping" both are easy to repair
Comment: Thanks, Ed.  The water lines in the house are entirely copper and the kitchen faucet is only about 4 years old.  Are the issues you noted still likely?  I'm not up on faucet terminology apparently because I don't know what you mean by washer-less, but will look into it.  Thanks!
Comment: Unless there's a valve that was partially closed between the shower and the kitchen sink, this (SOMETHING is causing a clog, and it's usually in the locations noted, though if that does not clear it up you may have to work backwards to find it - i.e. is pressure & flow good at the shutoff valves under the sink? ...assuming you have those)


Do fit or muscular people age better?

Question: Does being fit or muscular help to stay in better shape as people age? I have to ask as intuition would say yes but there don't seem to be serious studies on the subject. Also, some athletes are said to end up with a bit of wear and tear early in life. There could be a point beyond which exercise and build could be detrimental.
Comment: NYTimes just posted an article with related research today:http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/aging-well-through-exercise/
Answer: There are several aspects to aging, and depending on what you do will affect how you age.  It's not as simple as "just be fit and you'll stay healthier".  Apparently there is a book on the subject that will provide a much rounder picture than I can provide here.

Sarcopenia is the sad fact that you will lose muscle as you age.  However, depending on the exercise you do, you can slow the rate of loss.  If you do nothing (remain sedentary), you will lose 15% of your muscle mass per decade after you turn 30.  Dr. Kilgore mentioned in an article that resistance training can reduce the muscle loss from sarcopenia to only 5% per decade.
Osteoporosis is another age related ailment that resistance training can either prevent or at least slow (see the Dr. Kilgore article above).  Essentially the bones become less dense and more porous.  Resistance training puts additional stress on the bones which forces the adaptation for your body to deposit more calcium on them.
Cardiovascular health is influenced by conditioning (not resistance training).  Proper conditioning will build your heart and lungs to support the other activities you are involved in.  If you keep doing them as you age, your cardiovascular system will be much healthier.
No special name, but your tendons and connective tissue tends to get more brittle with age.  Exercise and stretching help keep them from being injured as easily.  Of course, exercise can also cause them to be injured in the first place.  Best course of action is a little more at a time.

Outside of these major quality of life and health concerns, proper diet and hydration affects your skin tone, fat content, blood sugar levels, etc.  The sad truth is that there are no guarantees that will give you a high quality of life until you die.  However, there are things you can do to increase your odds.
Comment: One comment about sacropenia: This is a bit misleading. Muscle mass can be increased substantially at any age with proper training. The observation that higher age is associated with lower muscle mass is merely statistical. It becomes harder to gain muscle as you age, but it's never impossible, and muscle loss is never inevitable.
Comment: I think it is fact that you will lose muscle every decade, the question is whether the muscle loss is overtaken by the work you put in during that decade to build it up.  For example the work I've put in over the past 6 months has increased more muscle mass than I am likely to lose (or have already lost) since I turned 30.  However, the closer I get to my genetic potential, the more I will be fighting a losing battle.  That could take me until my 50s to achieve--if I keep pushing in that direction.
Answer: Depends on what you mean by "aging better". Aging has a lot of different aspects, for example the loss of health (e.g. increased cardiovascular risk), loss of physical fitness, and deterioration of physical appearance.
There is no question at all that exercise prevents age-related health problems, and there are countless studies on that subject. Here's a study showing that exercise reduces cardiovascular risk. The same is true for physical fitness: Obviously exercise helps you stay fit as you age, since that's the main purpose of exercise in the first place.
Perhaps you are more interested in the age-related effects on appearance, i.e. does exercise help us look young as we age? This is a more complex topic, since appearance is fairly hard to measure.
One part of it is wrinkles, and I would argue that staying muscular is definitely a great way to prevent body wrinkles, by keeping the skin tight. In addition, skin hydration is a big factor in preventing wrinkles and exercise keeps you and your skin hydrated by strengthening your heart and improving your blood circulation.
Another part is how "healthy" you appear in terms of your skin tone, which is also affected by cardiovascular strength (blood circulation) and as such definitely associated with exercise.
Yet other parts are your stress-resistance, energy levels and emotional stability (sort of your "behavioral appearance"), all of which may decrease with age, and all of which are significantly improved with physical exercise.

So there's no doubt that exercise slows almost every aspect of aging. Is exercise also associated with increased risk of injury? Yes, but injury is something you can control and prevent to some extent if you're smart, while the creeping effects of age-related decline are not (unless you exercise).
The "wear and tear" kind of injury is mostly associated with excessive exercise, such as running the length of one or two marathons every week of your life. It's entirely preventable by moving from low- or moderate-intensity exercise to high-intensity exercise of shorter duration. But that's a different topic.
Answer: This study/article from the Stanford School of Medicine looks at older runners over almost twenty years. It shows that:

Elderly runners have fewer disabilities, a longer span of active life and are half as likely as aging nonrunners to die early deaths ...

Here's a paragraph that explains the methodology of the study:

Fries' team began tracking 538 runners over age 50, comparing them to a similar group of nonrunners. The subjects, now in their 70s and 80s, have answered yearly questionnaires about their ability to perform everyday activities such as walking, dressing and grooming, getting out of a chair and gripping objects. The researchers have used national death records to learn which participants died, and why. Nineteen years into the study, 34 percent of the nonrunners had died, compared to only 15 percent of the runners.

These two paragraphs describe the eventual onset of physical disabilities:

On average both groups in the study became more disabled after 21 years of aging, but for runners the onset of disability started later.
"Runners' initial disability was 16 years later than nonrunners,'" Fries said. "By and large, the runners have stayed healthy."
Comment: I would imagine that you could extend that to almost any weight bearing exercise, and to some extent the non weight bearing (cycling, swimming, etc) as well.

Do fit or muscular people age better?


How to connect HP6700 wireless printer to Elementary Loki

Question: I have a HP6700 wireless network printer and want to connect my elementary laptop using the wireless connection but have not found a way to do this.  Does anyone have any advice?
Answer: Switch OS. It's almost impossible to make a printer work in E-OS unless you are very lucky (or that you managed to endure this Apple travestite long enough that you grew accustomed with complicated steps that leads more than not to total waste of time). As you can see I'm having fun trying to install (for the X time) a printer in the same OS.
Welcome to Linux!
Comment: This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to comment on any post; instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead) from the asker. | >> [Help Center](https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/help) <<


SharePoint Web application port number conflicting with other IIS site port number in application pool

Question: I have created one SharePoint web application in SharePoint 2013 farm. And that web applications port number is conflicting with the port number of other non SharePoint point IIS site in the application pool of IIS Manager. So if I delete the SharePoint site will it delete all the IIS sites associated with the same port number in application pool. If yes what would be the way to delete the SharePoint web application along with its content database without deleting other IIS sites with same port number in application pool.
Answer: So if I delete the SharePoint site will it delete all the IIS sites associated with the same port number in application pool.
No, it's not related to the port it's related to the IIS site itself and its application pool.
but I think the deleting option is not a good solution especially if you already do some work in your web application, so it's recommended to change the port of the SharePoint web application rather than delete it.
The simple way to change the port number of the web application is to extend it to a new web application from central administration, then and provide the new port.

Now you have a new IIS site with a new port with the same content database, and you can now solve the issue of conflicting port easily, eg.by stopping the first SharePoint web application in IIS.
Comment: yes, if you delete SharePoint web application from central administration and select delete related IIS and content database this will affect only the SharePoint IIS site in IIS and its related content database and not have any effect on any sites that use the same port.
Comment: I don't have anything in that SharePoint site. And it is already in stopped form in IIS as I created it. So you mean to say I can also delete it without any worries.


Transferring Data from old to new PS3

Question: So I needed a bigger PS3 and didn't transfer my data over right when I got my new one. I have some single player games that I got really far in saved on my old one but don't want to restart them on my new one. I plan on selling my old one soon so I want to transfer all my saved data over without deleting anything on my new PS3. Any way I can do that?
Comment: To make it more clear: So you want to put your savegames from an older ps3 to a new one and just want to know how it works?
Answer: The PS3 system software has a built-in function that makes migration to another system easy and safe (no loss of save data or user data)
It can be done using one of the following 2 ways available:

the backup and restore utility uses an external USB drive that is formatted to FAT32 and creating backup data that is restored on the new system.  Official documentation for this process is available at this link
the data transfer utility uses an Ethernet cord to directly connect the two systems together and transferring/moving most of the system data over to the new console directly. Official documentation for this process is available at this link

Both of these processes are started from the system settings in the settings section of the XMB ( system menu)
Keep in mind that both processes completely wipe the system the data is being transferred to before the data is transferred.
Comment: It's generally a good idea to summarize the information at links, when they're critical to answering the question.  That way, if the site ever goes down, your answer is still good.

Transferring Data from old to new PS3


How can player characters see into the Ethereal Plane?

Question: How can player characters see into the Ethereal Plane? I'm familiar with the spell Truesight, but I'm wondering if there are other ways.
Comment: Are you asking as a DM or as a player? Do you want just official means via items/abilities/spells or are you also asking about Unearthed Arcana? Or are you asking about a specific class?
Answer: See into the Ethereal Plane yourself
The Ethereal Sight mode of Divination Wizards' 10th level feature The Third Eye grants the ability to see into the Ethereal Plane as an option.
Two spells explicitly lets a character see into the Ethereal Plane:

See invisibility (2nd level; Range: Self)

True seeing (6th level; Range: Touch)

Then of course you can gain truesight, which per the description in the Monster Manual (page 9; or PHB p. 185):

[...] Furthermore, the [monster/creature] can
see into the Ethereal plane within the same range.

Three magic items grant truesight as part of their effect (I'm not going to list magic items from modules as that would make the list essentially unbounded):

A Gem of Seeing (rare, requires attunement) will grant truesight for 10 minutes for each of its 3 charges.

A Crystal Ball of True Seeing (legendary, requires attunement; a crystal ball variant) adds truesight to the scrying spell cast through it.

The Eye of Veccna (artefact, requires attunement) grants truesight (no range listed) as one of its many benefits. No downsides, promise.

If applicable to your game, the Third Eye Nomad Dicipline from the UA Mystic Classgrants truesight.
Alternately, there are monsters with it and spells that let PCs take the form of a monster. As there are no beasts with truesight (bummer, right?) we need to be able to take any form. True polymorph and shapechange are good bets and you can find a list of monsters with truesight here.
Travel into the Ethereal Plane
If you are on the Ethereal Plane, you can see other creatures on it (and interact with them generally).

Etherealness (7th level; Range: Self). This spell transports you to the Ethereal Plane and if cast at a higher level will let you bring some willing creatures along. (Horizon Walker Rangers get the ability to cast a limited version of this spell at 7th level.)

Blink (3rd level; Range: Self). This spell will transport you to the Ethereal Plane, but with the side effect of transporting you back at the start of your turn. It's a bit weird, but it works.

"Companions" to see into the Ethereal plane
If you don't need to see into the Ethereal yourself, but can be sated by a companion (i.e. another creature under your command/control) doing it, there are a few ways for that too.

Mordenkainen's faithful hound (4th level). The phantom watchdog created by this spell can see into the Ethereal plane and alert you of any activity there.

Conjure celestial (7th level). When cast at 7th level, this spell can summon a Couatl (CR 4), which has truesight; when cast at 9th, it can summon a Battleforce Angel or a Felidar, both with truesight and from the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica (ask your DM about availability).

Summon greater demon (4th). When cast at a higher level, this spell will let you summon a demon of CR one higher that spell level. Notably, Glabrezu and Master of Cruelties (again from Ravnica; ask your DM) are CR 9 demons with truesight and so can be summoned with a 8th level casting.

Planar ally (6th level). This spell can summon a celestial, elemental, or fiend to help you. You will have to bargain for the service, and again see this list to find options.
Answer: See Invisibility allows you to see into the Ethereal plane.
The kuo-toa can see into the Ethereal plane as well.
Comment: Also, Kuo-toa don't really see into the Ethereal Plane, but can sense things on it. That kind of distinction is a good argument for including quotes and citations in your answer.
Comment: Since the question asked about players, are you assuming that a player can play the role of a kuo-toa?


How can a psionic power be augmented beyond your usual manifester level?

Question: What ways are there to either reduce power point costs or increase the effective manifester level for a psionic power—apart from Overcharge, the wilder class in general, or the torc of power preservation—, so that the power is augmented beyond the usual limits set by your manifester level? Even if the method works for a single power, or a single manifestation, it is still useful.
Comment: Your title says "3.P" but your tags only list [[tag:pathfinder]]. If you are playing with both 3.5 and Pathfinder material, you should also add the [[tag:dnd-3.5e]] tag to your question.
Comment: Ah, I thought 3.P was only pathfinder.
Comment: I edited your question some more, to focus more on the idea that the goal here—I presume—to get more oomph out of a power, beyond the usual limit of your usual manifester level. Please feel free to undo those changes as well if I have misunderstood you.
Comment: @Magos As addressed, no, Pathfinder is separate from 3.P (3.P being Pathfinder *with* D&D 3.5 content that otherwise wasn't ported). It's important here because 3.5 and Pathfinder Psionics are *very* different
Answer: Metamind
This Psionic PrC is the simple answer to more manifesting. It doesn't break the limits in an extraordinary way, but it does several useful things:
1) It grants more power points, which is essentially reduced costs aka more manifesting per day.
2) The capstone quite simply says that once per day for 1 minute you gain some defenses and infinite manifesting. Doesn't say he can actually exceed his manifester level, but zero cost powers for the duration of several encounters is really legit
Access: Level 6 to get into the class, level 16 for the capstone.
Vizier
This is an out-of-the-way base class from Dreamscarred Press (same people who did Psionics for Pathfinder). Akashic magic is totally legit, and this class is 10x more awesome than it seems on the first read. I could rave about it, but I'll cut short the rave with telling anyone who reads this to play this class through level 1-20 just once, and you'll realize how fantastic it I (no...seriously. Do. It.). ANYHOW, the key part you care about is thus:
1) dipping into the class, just 1 level will suffice. The class also has other synergies with just about any class that make it surprisingly useful, even at level 1. A 3 level dip would be worth it, IMO, but 1 level is all you need.
2) Taking the Akashic Augmentation feat. This allows you to invest some of your essence (kinda like power points for Akashic magic) into the feat, reducing the power point cost of a select power. Limited, but nifty.
Access: Dip, so whenever.
Cerebremancer
This Psionics PrC is your best bet. Dip into an arcane casting class, and then take this dual-progression class. It progresses your casting, meaning you end up getting spells from that dip (useful) but the key part is that you can sacrifice spell slots to boost powers for free. When you are talking things like 9th level spell slots you're sacrificing, that is a huge augmentation and boost to the DCs. How this interacts with manifester level isn't clear, but ostensibly it bypasses the limitations since you aren't actually augmenting the powers. Even if it doesn't, though, you're dropping the cost ridiculously. Excellent choice for any super-high-powered psionics manifester build. #1 choice right here.
Access: PrC, whenever you can get ahold of 2nd level arcane spells. I would recommend going after the most spells per day you can.
Comment: Having more power points improves longevity, as does not actually having to pay power points, but *neither* allows you to amp up the potency of any one manifestation, which seems to be the focus of the question. I don't think metamind really applies here.
Comment: Doesn't the cost of the power being free from font of power mean you can use your entire manifester level power point limit on augmentations?


SharePoint Content DB exceed 200 GB

Question: As per Microsoft site I saw content DB size will be 200 GB for best performance. I want to know if site collection size reached 200 GB then as an admin, what action should I take to reduce the size so that my site will work smoothly. In my company users are uploading more files and because of that data usage will increase very fast, so I need a suggestion on this.
Answer: 2 things I can think off hand:

Tell users to start purging content that is no longer necessary.

Use Move-SPSite to move some site collections to a new content database.

Based on your comment and making some assumptions, it isn't going to be that easy. You'll need to fracture off some of your subsites and make them their own site collections and then you can use the move-spsite operation to move them into new content databases.
Comment: I've one webapplication in which one site collection is created. Could you please explain in short about Move-SPSite to get some idia..
Comment: everything is lumped into a single site collection? How many subsites are there?
Comment: Have on web application in this created one site collection under this 2 sub sites..
Answer: You basically have two options:

Split your content across multiple site collections and distribute the site collections evenly in multiple content databases.
Meet the requirements to use 4 TB content databases.

Do you use sub-sites within your one site collection? If yes, stop doing this and create site collections instead. Use managed navigation to build a logical navigation structure across the site collections.
Answer: In your case, the best option is split the site collection into multiple site collections.each site collection should be in own content database.
You have to decide upon the usage and target department. Splitting the site collection will create a new URL for new site collection which may upset the users. When you split it to multiple site collections then you have to redevelop your coding if there is any. It is not an easy task but looks like this is the only options.
Now if you use the 3rd party tools( sharegate or metlogix) then the splitting will be easy but if you use your import & export method then it will time-consuming.
Answer: I think you should spend little more time in "architecting" your farm.
So as mentioned in above excellent answers, you can create multiple content databases for site collection.
In addition to this, you should turn on versioning in the document libraries as  SP 2013, we have the concept of Shredded storage.
What it means -
SharePoint 2013's Shredded Storage is an attempt by Microsoft to reduce the I/O impact when saving versions of a document or file by "shredding" it into smaller pieces and reassembling it when someone needs to access it.
Shredded storage in SP2013
The Truth behind Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013
In addition to this, you can configure RBS to move large files to location outside content database.

In SharePoint 2013, a binary large object (BLOB) is a large block of
  data stored in a database that is known by its size and location
  instead of by its structure — for example a Office document or a video
  file. By default, these BLOBs, also known as unstructured data, are
  stored directly in the SharePoint content database together with the
  associated metadata, or structured data. Because these BLOBs can be
  very large, it might be better to store BLOBs outside the content
  database. BLOBs are immutable. Therefore,, a new copy of the BLOB must
  be stored for each version of that BLOB. Because of this, as a
  database's usage increases, the total size of its BLOB data can expand
  quickly and grow larger than the total size of the document metadata
  and other structured data that is stored in the database. BLOB data
  can consume lots of space and uses server resources that are optimized
  for database access patterns. Therefore, it can be helpful to move
  BLOB data out of the SQL Server database, and onto commodity or
  content addressable storage. To do this, you can use RBS.

Overview of RBS in SharePoint 2013
Deciding to use RBS in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint Content DB exceed 200 GB


Can 'api_site_parameter' be added to related_site?

Question: It would be great if the related_site type contained api_site_parameter. I realize that you probably don't want to clutter up related_site with a lot of unnecessary fields, but I think it makes sense to include api_site_parameter since it provides an easy way for an app to jump to a site's meta - the only information that is currently provided is the site name, URL (not too helpful to an app), and the relation to the parent.
Comment: Surely it would be better just to make related_site have jut two fields, `relation` and `site`. Where `site` is just a normal site type. Then use filters to choose what you want.
Comment: Even better is to have a `context` field, and have it not only on this route, but things like badge awards as well.
Answer: This was added in the last deploy.
Originally I was planning for consumers to maintain the site cache based on host names, but I suppose it's better to have the "query with this" parameter readily available regardless of how a site is discovered.
Comment: Well - `api_site_parameter` seems like the best option for a key in a database anyway.


The Effects of Moving Matter Across Light-Year distances

Question: If I were to stand at one end of a light-year long metal pole, and another person were to stand one light-year away at the other end, and then I were to push on my end of the pole. How long would it take for their side of the pole to move? I've been told that the matter in the pole would only move at the speed of sound. So it would take however long a sound-wave takes to travel a light-year for the other person to see the pole move. But if this is true, does that mean that if you were to take any still object, and hit it with another object moving at the speed of sound, the still object would compress into itself before expanding back out again?
Comment: I would assume the answer to your second question will depend on the compressibility/rigidity of the body. For example, if you shoot a ping pong ball against a slab of metal at the speed of sound, nothing would happen to the slab, but I'm guessing the ping pong ball would experience something drastic. Solids can experience more than a certain amount of shear without tearing apart, so it'll depend on the momentum of impact between the two bodies.
Answer: You are quite correct, the movement of the pole would travel at the speed of sound in whatever the pole is made of, and this does apply to any object.
Although I suspect it's not the real point of your question, the speed of sound in steel is about 6100 m/s, so assuming your pole is made from steel it would take about 49,200 years for the other end of the pole to move.
Comment: Well yes. I don't know what the attenuation of sound in steel is (though I'm sure it's on the Internet somewhere) but I imagine it's great enough that the pressure wave would fade away long before travelling a light year. But then it's only a thought experiment - at least I assume no-one is seriously intending to try it :-)
Comment: Hello John, Doesn't these waves suffer *some* energy loss as they travel to about 1 LY..? (it seems to be quite a large distance) They must lose energy as they travel through steel for such a long period. In fact, they're still pressure waves. Isn't it?
Comment: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. Just a curiosity though... with a tiny bit of suspicion, "would this change my previous studies?" :-)


sampling a sinusoidal signal at the Nyquist rate

Question: To sample a sinusoidal signal at the Nyquist rate, we have to take two samples per cycle. Is there any condition on the position of the two samples? is it necessary to take them at the peaks?
Comment: So, your "Why?" is a new question, and you might want to edit your question to ask that. But: the answer will be: yes, the theory **does** restrict the reconstructability of signal at the nyquist rate. You just have to be mathematically rigorous – reconstructability is either guaranteeed $[0;f_\text{Nyquist}[$ or $]0;f_\text{Nyquist}]$, **not** on the closed interval $[0;f_\text{Nyquist}]$.
Comment: I don't understand the question – have you *tried* to visualize what happens when you do that? Necessary for *what purpose*?
Comment: If we take two samples but not the peaks, can we reconstruct the signal correctly?
Comment: see my first comment. If you take two samples per period of e.g. a sine, do you get the same when you take them at the peak, the zero crossings, or somewhere in between? Doesn't that already answer your question?
Comment: Of course the zero crossing points will result in zero signal. Two samples in locations other than the peaks yield different signal reconstruction, why? the theory does not restrictions on the position of the samples
Answer: Noha, when the classical sampling theorem (Nyquist-Shannon) for baseband signals
is applied to an ideal sinusoidal of infinite extend of frequency $f_m$ Hertz
$$x(t) = \cos(2 \pi f_m t)$$ it's found that the signal must be sampled at a sampling frequency greater than $2 f_m$; i.e.
$$f_s > 2 f_m$$
Note that even though the selection of $f_s = 2 f_m$ would sufficiently work for most of the typical engineering signals, it will not work for an ideal sinusoidal signal. The reason is that the ideal sinusoidal has an exact impulse at the $f_s / 2$ frequency whereas most typical signals will not.
The practical solution is to use a sampling frequency slightly greater than the theoretical value given by the sampling theorem unless you are sure that there wont be any components at $f_s/2$.
Answer:
To sample a sinusoidal signal at the Nyquist rate, we have to take two
samples per cycle.

This is false.  For baseband sampling, one has to sample above twice the highest frequency.
Note that time limited signals do not have zero bandwidth, so one has to sample above the frequency plus its upper bandwidth (any portion above your chosen noise floor) of any non-infinite length sinusoid, or you will not even be sampling at twice its highest frequency.  The shorter the sinusoid and/or sampling window, the higher the required sampling rate to meet the Nyquist criterion (for a given noise floor requirement or specification).
"two samples per cycle" is the limiting case as your sinusoid and sampling length approaches infinity (e.g. beyond the lifetime of the known universe), and the noise floor goes to zero (lower than Planck dimension).


Fastest way to grind reputation for Horde Expedition

Question: In a post-Cata world, what's the fastest way to grind faction for Horde Expedition? I recently leveled my engineering on an alt and want to purchase the schematic for a Mechano-Hog. This requires exalted with Horde Expedition. Is there currently a way to get this all done in one day on a level 85? Does it really take weeks of grinding on daily quests?
Comment: sadly, yes it does.
Answer: The Horde Expedition is made up of the combined forces of the horde in Northrend, these factions are:

The Hand of Vengeance,
The Taunka,
Warsong Offensive,
The Sunreavers

Half of the reputation gains from the Horde Expedition's four factions count towards this the Horde Expedition's reputation. Therefore, you must have two of the four factions at Exalted in order to be exalted with the Horde Expedition, or the equivalent amount of reputation spread across all four.
You can farm reputation upto "Revered" simply by questing in Northrend. In addition to questing, you can do a handful of daily quests that will raise your reputation with the Horde Expedition. These are:
Icecrown

Blood of the Chosen - 125 reputation,
Assault by Air - 125 reputation,
Assault by Ground - 125 reputation,
King of the Mountain - 125 reputation,
Keeping the Alliance Blind - 125 reputation

In addition, the Argent Tournament Dailies should give reputation to these factions.
Grizzly Hills (PvP Daily)

Blackriver Brawl - 250 reputation,
Making the Repairs - 125 reputation,
Shred the Alliance - 125 reputation,
Keep 'Em on Their Heels - 125 reputation,
Overwhelmed - 125 reputation

All Wrath of the Lich King heroics will give reputation with all the Horde Expedition forces without a tabard equipped. In addition, the high end Wrath of the Lich King normal instances will also give reputation with all of these factions. These instances are;

Utgarde Pinnacle,
The Culling of Stratholme,
The Oculus,
Halls of Lightning

As a level 85 damage dealing class, solo'ing Wrath of the Lich King instances should not present itself as a problem, clearing all of them will go some distance to farming the reptuation you need to get to exhalted with this faction.
Comment: Pixel pretty much sumed up all the dailies you can do. I've personally grinded from 0 to exalted in the alliance counterpart Alliance Vanguard by doing my dailies and running Heroic Utgarde pinnacle and Heroic Utgarde Keep. Roughly took me a week of doing this.
Comment: Running WotLK heroics could be tough for an average-geared 85, but I guess that varies with individual, class and skills.
Comment: Yeah no doubt, I did it on my hunter which makes things easier I guess.


Script file file not being loaded through ScriptLink custom action - SharePoint app

Question: I am having trouble with script link custom actions. I am building a SharePoint app, and I successfully added a site-scope custom action pointing to a script file in the Style Library, as I want this particular script to be injected to all the pages of my SharePoint site.
While it works in certain situations, the script link injection breaks without apparent reason under certain conditions. For example, when I arrive on my root web, the script will be injected. But, if I go to a certain link within this web (for example Home or Site Contents), the file that is supposed to be injected will simply not be fetched from the Style Library and therefore never be injected, resulting in an uncaught ReferenceError when I try to call one of the script's function. The weirdest part is that a page refresh through Ctrl+F5 will fetch the script file without any problem, regardless of the page's ability to originally fetch the script file when first accessed. It will keep the script until it is accessed through a link again.
I've read up on Sharepoint caching, thinking it may be the cause of my problem, but the trouble is that these articles mostly talk about cache-induced errors when updating a file, while I am only trying to access it.
One thing to note is that, due to limitations, I am adding the script link custom action through code. Here's an example of what this kind of call currently looks like in my app:
context.Load(context.Site.UserCustomActions);
context.ExecuteQuery();
<code>customAction.Name = "MyScriptLink";
customAction.Location = "ScriptLink";
customAction.Sequence = 100;
customAction.ScriptSrc = "~SiteCollection/Style Library/MySite/MyScript.js";

customAction.Update();
context.ExecuteQuery();
</code>
Also, I know the custom action itself works, since changing the code I just showed by adding instructions in a ScriptBlock property instead of relying on fetching a file through ScriptSrc works like a charm; the code is executed in every page.
So, what's going on here ? Why is my script no injected on certain pages ? Why does a refresh on these exact same pages manage to fetch the file without any problem ?
Answer: Found it ! Three words: Minimum Download Strategy. Disable it, it messes with you page redirect behavior within a SharePoint site (either through code or through site settings)


How much fuel does it take to start an engine?

Question: I appreciate this is a question that can't be answered in facts and figures, so I'm after a general idea. I drive a 1986 Supra, which has a modest 2.8-litre engine. I often shut the engine off while waiting at traffic lights to save fuel, but I'm wondering how much it saves when I have to crank the engine before pulling away.
Somewhere along the line, I heard that it took about 30 seconds of idling worth of fuel to start a cold engine (i.e. the same amount of fuel as the engine would burn idling for 30 seconds), and for a hot engine, that drops to around 10 seconds, so I try to shut the engine off if I'm going to be waiting for more than 10 seconds.
I'm wondering if this "rule" only applies to more modern cars, which is why I mention the age of my Supra. Obviously all EFI engines "flare" after being started with the key to ensure the engine catches; if more sophisticated fuel injection systems have finer control over the extra fuel used during the flare, they might use less fuel to start.
The perfect situation is waiting facing downhill where I can let the car roll, then bump-start it using its own momentum instead of the electric starter (since it doesn't flare), but those are few and far between.
Comment: While I appreciate the nature of the question, I'm not sure it can be answered definitively. It seems to me all answers will be subjective and opinion based, versus factual. Every vehicle is going to be different. If you are asking specifically for your car, then you need to take into account the state of tune for the vehicle itself and also how worn out is the engine. I think your 10 sec wait time is probably not a bad measure for engine shutdown, but again, that is JMHO.
Comment: @Paulster2 : I can take a stab at answering this question objectively
Comment: @Zaid ... AB-SO-STINK-IN-LUTE-LY!!! It is my opinion someone cannot. I have no control over whether some else can. If you can, I'll upvote in a moment and encourage others to do so as well. I look forward to reading (and upvoting) your answer! Please, please, please, prove me wrong ... I need that every once in a while. Helps keep me humble, which is no easy task ;-)
Comment: I think it's not just an a little richer mixture, which costs more fuel after starting. The battery has to supply electrical devices while the motor is off, and also the starter.  So, it needs some charging when the motor is running again. The motor has to handle that additional load, which costs some extra fuel.
Answer: This question is very multi faceted because fuel economy is such a complex topic. When a car is starting first the computer check the coolant temperature sensor to see how hot the engine is. In the memory of the computer there is a look up table that dictates how much fuel it should add for a specific temperature. This table is very conservative and the computer will add more fuel than is actually needed just to make sure the engine starts. Then the computer will set the idle speed motor to the max value as per look up table as well this is why that flare up happens. Whey you start cranking the engine the computer starts adding fuel and spark, but it will take at least 3 to four revolutions before something happens and then at least a half second for everything to stabilize. A this point the computer takes control of the idle and brings the flare down. Finally, this is the point that is often forgotten, the computer has to bring the engine under closed loop control. In closed loop control the engine is most efficient as compared to open loop control that uses a similar table mentioned up above. The biggest obstacle to getting under closed loop control is the temperature of the oxygen sensor. If it is too cool it will not read and will start reading when it is sufficiently warm. Most vehicles are equipped with oxygen sensor warmers. With the age of your car i'm not sure if it has one and that would cause it to take longer to warm up.
With all of this being said i'm not sure how much fuel you are actually saving. The extra fuel needed to start the car and to bring it under closed loop control may actually waste more fuel then just idling for that 30 seconds. Also your starter and ignition switch both have a rated life, an average number of times that they can preform their job. That amount may be 1000 times or 10000 times but turning the car on and off like you are is greatly increasing the rate at witch you will reach failure. Ultimately the extra wear you put on your engine components may out weigh the fuel savings that you might be getting.
Comment: You're right about the closed-loop aspect - I hadn't considered that. Supras only got oxygen sensors late in the mk2's life though - mine doesn't have one, so it runs open-loop permanently. However, I have heard that cars with them deliberately run rich from cold to warm up the sensor with hotter exhaust. I also appreciate that heated oxygen sensors use electrical power which has to be replenished by the alternator. I'm looking to fit an aftermarket ECU as part of some performance modifications, so maybe I'll be able to finely tune the startup parameters that way
Comment: Have you read this? Way less than 30 seconds of idling to pay back the energy for the starter when the car is warm. http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/57794/calculating-engine-starter-s-energy-use
Comment: For new cars it is 1 to 3 seconds not 30 seconds! (the theory and info is great but maybe not the conclusion, if it is 30 secs then start the car 60 times and you should have used 0.6 litres of petrol, easy to measure....very doubtful it would use so much but if it is it would definitely be worth a test). Even if you needed a new starter every 5 years you would be saving yourself enough in fuel vosts to warrant that spending...and idling is bad for your engine which is the most expensive part
Comment: @atreeon 1 to 3 seconds, not 30, what? My conclusion states 30 seconds of idling, not how long it takes to go into closed loop.
Comment: @vini_i thanks for replying! (I'm trying to get to the bottom of this!) I have heard many sources say that the best way to get a car at the correct temperature is to drive it carefully - this would put the car into the most efficient closed loop position quickest and a more efficient temperature quicker.  So, when you start the car, don't idle it at all to warm it up, just drive it (but don't floor it).  In fact idling can take the car out of closed loop because it isn't running fast enough. That being said most cars are in closed loop almost immediately anyway.
Comment: (I think the closed loop point is a bit irrelevent, or negligible...but I am not a mechanic...just someone who is trying to read as much literature as he can and understand this more)
Comment: This old paper suggests the fuel used during 6 seconds of idling is equal to the fuel used in one restart.  I would suggest that for newer cars it would be less time now of idling is equal to one restart (I have heard 3 seconds) because engine design is now designed more for stop/start technology plus other improvements https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2004-01-1896/
Comment: @atreeon The cars engineered for start/stop can have a starterless start (mazda) or a special starter/motor (prius).
Answer: If your driving is consistent, you could test it out by measuring your gas mileage, with shutting your vehicle off at lights, and not shutting it off.  You would want to average at least 3 tanks of each to make sure there aren't any weird outliers (stuck in traffic, muggy weather).
If you want an exact answer for your vehicle, you would need some way to measure the amount of fuel passed into the engine.  If you have datalogging access to your ECU, you might be able to calculate fuel consumption based off of injector pulses.
Answer: 1.1ml of petrol per engine restart
For fuel injected engines, this paper suggests for a 1.5 litre engine it takes 1.1ml to 1.2ml of fuel to start a car. In another study, the graph below (link) suggests the amount of fuel used when idling is, in relation to engine size, linear - the bigger the engine the more fuel.
So, when idling a 3 litre engine you will use twice as much fuel as a 1.5 litre engine (0.6 litres per hour) and I would expect this difference to be the same when starting a car because the amount of fuel used starting a car, like idling, is dependent on engine size.
The 1.1ml of fuel study is an old study (2002?) and, with improvements in computerisation and sensors in fuel injected engines, I would assume the amount of fuel required is now less.  The all important mixture of air and fuel can be optimised automatically.
25 year old carburetor based engines are different to fuel injected
With fuel injector engines, how cold the car is won't have much to do with how much fuel it will use to start up.  With carboretor engines (entirely phased out in cars by the early 1990s), it will be more expensive in fuel and depend on the warmth of the engine, the use of the choke an other factors.
1 - 3 seconds of idling is equal to one restart
I've heard reliable sources for modern fuel injected cars quote somewhere between 1 and 3 seconds of idling equates to one restart of an engine.
Don't let your car idle; to warm the engine drive it carefully
The information you heard about the difference between idling and starting up is not true for fuel injected cars - all new cars made since the 1990s.  This information may be true for very old carburetor based engines.  You are better to drive your car carefully as soon as you start your engine up (don't floor it and don't let the car idle to warm up; you can start and stop your car as much as you like...the total cost in starting a fuel injected engine will be less than the total cost of idling).


NoScript for Safari

Question: I find myself drifting away from Firefox to Safari, but the lack of NoScript is making me a little uneasy. Is there an equivalent plugin for Safari?
Answer: There's also JavaScript Blocker.
Comment: "Automatic rules make it easy to block any script that isn't from the same domain of the webpage you're viewing." That sounds great. Not even NoScript can do that (I think). For example, I want to allow twitter's js, but only when on twitter.com, and not embedded on other sites.
Comment: Wow, this is a really nice implementation of a script blocking extension. It's only sad that you cannot block scripts that are within a page itself. This is "a limitation of the Safari extension design".
Comment: @gentmatt's comment from 2012 is out of date, this plugin does block inline scripts now.
Comment: This script makes my Safari slow. Often opening gmail is a nightmare. Apart from that, it is superb.
Comment: This no longer works at all with Safari 12+.
Answer: I'm not super familiar with NoScript, but from a quick glance at the site, I can think of two good starting points - how useful they are will depend on which features of NoScript you make use of.
ClickToPlugin is a great plugin blocker, pretty configurable, and it also has a fantastic h.264 replacement for Flash video. It substitutes h.264 video with a nice tidy player (mostly just the standard Safari player with one or two modifications) wherever it can, probably gets 80-90% of video in my experience. Makes in-browser video a lot nicer.
JavaScript Blacklist blocks 3rd party JS stuff, good for stuff like tynt.com and all those double-underlined shopping popup links in forums. Configuration options may be a bit basic for your tastes, but it's a good start.
Comment: JavaScript Blacklist no longer exists (nor indeed does anything on `homepage.mac.com`
Answer: Ghostery is a great option if you're just aiming for privacy. It runs in every browser on every operating system, even mobile ones.
Comment: Ghostery is not recommended due to closed source and tracking: https://gitlab.com/prism-break/prism-break/issues/1225

NoScript for Safari


Elongation values for materials

Question: According to EN standards, elongation for each material type has been defined, and it varies with different range of thicknesses for the same material. Why is it so? How is this value calculated?
Answer: A few points; Actually covering the subject requires a book. For steels , the differences in properties vary with thickness because of : 1- inclusions, 2- grain size, 3- hardenability, 4- composition, 5- Actual product thickness, 6- steel making practice, 7- casting technique, And several things I forgot.
Inclusions are generally concentrated near the center,inclusions reduce ductility.
Grains size , larger sections have larger grains and lower ductility- very strongly dependent on heat-treatment, etc.
Hardenability will control strength and ductility of particular thickness - very strongly dependent on heat-treatment.
Composition differences mostly a factor for ingot cast.
Actual product thickness ,  a twelve inch thick plate will be very different from one inch plate.
Steel practice , electric furnace,oxygen converter,open hearth,etc,plus deoxidation, vacuum degassing, etc.
Casting practice, ingot or continuous cast ; continuous cast has revolutionized steel making it more uniform and generally reducing inclusions improving ductility. None of this can be calculated
Answer: A specimen of each material, precisely machined to specific dimensions, is tested under controlled conditions to measure the change in length according to a measured load.
That gives the elongation value available in the charts.
This is a common lab experiment, at least in many engineering courses, and sometimes it is elongation or sometimes bending. One that we did involved a 1 metre bar of aluminium, 3cm wide and 25cm deep. An interesting lab with a lot of hand calculations to do after...

Elongation values for materials


What makes a cymbal "dry" or "wet"?

Question: "Dry" seems like an odd term to use for a plate of hammered bronze. What makes a cymbal dry? If it's not dry, does that mean it is wet?
Comment: In what context? Dry & wet are ways to describe whether or not a channel/instrument/track has reverb or any other effect. Dry is without effect, wet is with [or even the effect only]; though it's a sliding scale with no absolutes.
Comment: @Tetsujin Good question. My question is in reference to a cymbal's tonality when played, not with reverberation as a consequence of the room or an added effect. A cymbal room at a drum store is purposely sound treated to allow the natural tone of the cymbal to be heard.
Comment: The more water you pour into the cymbal the more wet the sound will be. When the cymbal is dry it will have less H2O.
Answer: In general wet will have more sustain. Dry will be dark with a very fast decay.
Simply put wet just rings more.
Comment: Careful -- now you need to define a "dark" vs. "bright" sound!   Also: could you clarify whether "sustain" and "rings" here means how long there's sound, or the amount of clear sound (as when hitting near the center) vs. the amount of white noise (hitting at the edge) ?

What makes a cymbal "dry" or "wet"?


Did I annoy someone?

Question: I find this morning that I have had 6 downvotes on various questions, some quite old. Did I kick someone? Has someone decided to hate me all of a sudden?
Comment: I've added a [meta question about downvoting](http://meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/237/when-is-it-appropriate-to-downvote-an-answer)
Comment: Don't take it personally, it's a site very focused around scientific correctness. No one is attacking you.
Comment: I think I know what happened here, some users were sharing questions/answers they didn't find fitting for the site in [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4097443#4097443), a couple of your answers did come up there.
Answer: We had an extensive chat discussion yesterday in which several questions were posted as examples; it starts somewhere around here, but it's an immensely long discussion thread which continues throughout the day. This caused the questions to be viewed by a few core members of the site, and as such some posts got extra attention.
From what I recall it might be that a few of your answers were deemed to be incomplete since you didn't include any references. I also converted one answer to a comment, which might have been yours.
Definitely don't interpret it as a personal attack, it is not. Look at it as constructive (albeit a bit delayed) feedback where the community shows you which posts they feel should be improved. If you need any guidance in interpreting the down votes in case no comments were left behind, you can regularly find me and others in chat.
Answer: I can see how that would not be a pleasant experience.
I've gone through many of your answers. I imagine the main reason for the downvotes is that some of your answers lack references, lack empirical support, or resort to personal experience.
To take one of your answers as an example:

I realise this is anecdotal, but the answer to this does vary between
  people. My wife likes to have nothing to listen to while studying or
  concentrating. I like to have the TV on normally, or Chill Radio,
  whereas by youngest son has metal music on - not what most people
  would consider conducive the thought of any sort.
I understand that my wife finds that music or sounds are distracting -
  she needs to put effort into focussing. I, OTOH, find that the sounds
  help my focus, but eliminating other distractions - becasue I am in
  control of the sounds, they are not distracting. Youngest son enjoys
  the music, so for him it is just pleasant background to studying.
  Incidentally, my wife and I differ on having a tickign clock in the
  bedrooom too - she cannot stand it, whereas I fid it soothing and
  calming, and helps me get to sleep.
I am sure that I have seem studies that back up these sorts of
  differences, and that they are about differences in the way we think
  and process information. Cannot find anythig ATM though.

This is anecdotal evidence. If you were to remove or make very brief the anecdotal evidence and find some of the relevant studies that have been done and accurately summarise them, then I imagine such an answer would tend to receive upvotes.
I wasn't involved in the downvoting.  However, some users are keen to ensure that the site maintains a certain degree of academic rigour, and that can be expressed as downvotes to answers.
Comment: I hope you continue to contribute to the site.
Comment: Yes I do have more anecdotal evidence than some, and mark it as such. WHere I have the academic material to back it up, I will include it, but my area is HCI, which touches on CS, but is not core to it. A lot of HCI work is exploration of anecdotal ideas. The danger of insisting on academic rigour too much is that tose who are not specifically CS academics will not contribute, whereas I think the site can benefit from other disciplines insights too.
Answer: I think I am the cause of the sudden burst of downvotes. It was not personal, and I apologize. I should have been more careful when posting examples in chat to make sure I only had one per user. I will be happy to remove my downvotes and encourage others to do the same when you edit your answers.
In chat we were discussing examples of questions of particular tone. I raised a few of your answers as examples of too many anecdotal answers. Although it is nice to relay your personal experience, that seldom answers a question. @JeromyAnglim already raised the issue in his answer.
The other issue I found several times in the answers, was a tendency to make comments or discussions instead of answering the specific question. For example:

There can be real isights from cross-disciplinary study, because the patterns of thinking and problem solving differs between differet disciplines. So an issue that someone cannot see an answer to might be very clear to someone from a different discipline, because they view problems in a different way. I am sure that some of the physicists who have made breakthroughs in the last 50 years have had insights from other disciplines, but I cannot find examples at the moment.
So, in your example, if an economist learns psychology, he can put his psychological approach to issues to use in his economics, and vv, meaning that he might be able to do well at both of them. A lot of "performance" at a discipline is about seeing things in different ways, and so seeing resolutions to issues.

This is an interesting comment, but that question is not about philosophy of science or how to practice science. The question is on cognitive science about the psychology of learning multiple disciplines. The specific question asks for facts, what the brain does, and if it depends on age. Your answer does not address any of those, beyound a very vague: "because the patterns of thinking ... differs between ... disciplines". Thus you are commenting on the question, not answering it. I realize that I should have flagged the answer instead, but that seems even more harsh, since it does not allow you a chance to improve it.
As for the timing. It was mostly an accident because of the discussion we were having in chat. As for why I personally cast a few downvotes (along side sharing the links) now as opposed to earlier, was because earlier it was not clear if you were an experienced user or not. On some specific answers I also commented early on and waited for you to improve the answer.
Comment: I think the problem isn't so much that personal experience doesn't answer questions, it's that it didn't answer *these* questions. There are certainly [Good Subjective](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/) questions out there that call for expertise, but I haven't seen many on this site thus far.
Comment: You see, I come from a computing and specifically HCI background, so I take note of the entire message, and it woudl appear that the message is "These insights are not appropriate to the site". In particular "your style is not right for here". And yes, I am exceptionally bad at following up and researching references, which is my bad. I forget by the time I can do this. For which I might expect early downvotes when the quesiton is active, not very late ones.
Comment: @SchroedingersCat as was said, timing was bad. We just happened to be discussing the quality of posts (as per the other meta questions) and stuff that's not "expert" material is certainly the focus lately

Did I annoy someone?


What is the biblical basis for Jesus' pre-incarnate existence?

Question: Basically the opposite of this question. What are the most notable biblical passages that believers in the pre-incarnate existence of Jesus resort to to defend their position? How do they usually defend their interpretation of those passages against rebuttals from critics?
Comment: Have you looked at the answers to this question? https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/4464/does-jesus-ever-claim-to-be-god-or-the-son-of-god/4467#4467 This details the places where Jesus is called God in scripture, and for most people "being God" implies a pre-incarnational existence.
Comment: @DJClayworth - Although being God is a sufficient condition for pre-incarnational existence, it's not a necessary one. There could be passages that support pre-incarnational existence without directly supporting divinity.
Comment: John 1:1-14 The Word was God, The Word became flesh, all scholars agree that Jesus had a pre-incarnational existence here, either as in the form of wisdom (per Dunn, Mcgrath) or as a personal being (per Ehrman, Hurtado and Bauckham). The former refers to notional/ideal preexistence whilst the latter refers to literal/personal preexistence.
Comment: @RadzBrown - I am not aware that Bart (?) Ehrman affirms the "pre-incarnation existence" as a "personal being" of Jesus. Can you provide evidence? Thank you
Comment: @MigueldeServet https://ehrmanblog.org/intriguing-statements-about-christ-in-pauls-letters/
Answer: Jesus repeatedly says things to the effect of having come from the Father, being sent by the Father, having come from the Father and into the world:

I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. - John 16:28

If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. - John 8:42

Folks will argue that verses like these indicate the creative source only, i.e. "Came from God" means created by God at the incarnation.  However, the verses connect separate ideas.  I came from the Father and have come into the world, (and) now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.
Leaving one location and coming to another is mirrored in the return:  Came from God to the world, leaving the world and going to God  The parenthetical and above which appears in some English translations is actually again in the Greek and indicates a renewal or repetition of the action.  He's repeating Himself so that we get it.
The same mirror principle is related in Acts 1:11:

"Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

Another example of Jesus returning to where He was before is found in what He asked his disciples:

Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? - John 6:62

"Son of Man" being Jesus' favorite self designation.  And there is direct confession of pre-existence with the Father from Jesus Himself:

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. - John 17:5 ESV

And now, glorify me, Thou Father, with Thyself, with the glory that I had before the world was, with Thee - YLT

Regardless of how "before the world was" is understood it is evident that Jesus is claiming to have had existence prior to that event and to have been in possession of shared glory with the Father.  As long as "before the world was" is placed prior to the incarnation (where else could it be placed) Jesus is claiming His own pre-incarnational existence.
Comment: There is also the famous verse in John *"before Abraham was, I am"*: https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/55803/very-truly-i-tell-you-before-abraham-was-i-am-why-did-the-jews-want-to-t
Answer: Since according to some I did not meet the requirements of the specific question I chose to delete my initial post and give the following answer.
The following verses have already been brought up, (John 8:42, John 16:28, John 17:5, and Acts 1:11.) Jesus Christ was identified and presented as the agent of creation at John 1:1-3, Colossian 1:16-17, Hebrews 1:10 by His own Father, and at Revelation 3:14.
Jesus Christ is also called God at John 20:28, at Titus 2:13, at 2 Peter 1:1, Hebrews 1:8 by His own Father, Isaiah 9:6 and other places in the Bible.
Jesus Christ is identified with God His Father as the "Alpha and Omega" at Revelation 1:8 as well as the "First and Last at Revelation 1:18, Revelation 22:13, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Another verse to show Jesus was sent from heaven is John 6:62. "What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending WHERE HE WAS BEFORE." If one is sent from somewhere, they necessarily have to exist to be sent.
Then there is the account of what the Apostle John explains at John 12:41, "These things Isaiah said, because he saw His/Jesus Christ glory, and he spoke of Him." Where did Isaiah see Jesus Christ? Isaiah 6:1, "In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted with the train of His robe filling the temple." Vs3 (paraphrasing), "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. At vs4 Isaiah says, "For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
The word used by Isaiah for "saw" is (ra'ah). In the qal, it refers to the act of seeing in the literal sense, to see with the eyes (as opposed to, for example, "machazeh," which is the act or event of an ecstatic "vision". In referring to this event, John uses the Greek word ("eidon") also a verb referring to the act of seeing with the eyes in the natural sense.
Finally, we have Jesus Christ at Matthew 22:42 asking the Jews the following question? What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?" They said to Him, "The son of David." Vs43, "He said to them, Then how does David in the Spirit call Him Lord, saying,
Verse 44, "The Lord said to My Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy feet?" Verse 45, "If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his son?" What was the point that Jesus was making?
Comment: what has Acts 1:11 got to do with the Q?
Comment: Woud you mind if I edit John 6:62 into my answer?
Comment: @MikeBorden Not at all Mike, go for it and keep up the good work. Thank You!
Answer: Scholars also point out that one of the earliest Pauline epistles teaches that Jesus had a pre-incarnational existence. In Philippians 2:6-7, Jesus was already in the form of God and had equality with God prior to/before he became in likeness of humans/found in the form as a man.

Philippians 2:6-8 is commonly taken as ascribing a pre-existence to Jesus "in the form of God," who then became a human/historical figure and submitted himself to obedience to God, even to the point of crucifixion (TAGGED WITH PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST
"Pre-Existence" in Ancient Jewish Tradition and the NT
, Larry Hurtado, 2019)

"I have been trying to explain the unusually important statement about Christ in Paul's "Christ Poem" in Phil. 2:6-10. It's an extremely high Christology. Christ is a divine being before coming into the world; and at his exaltation he was made equal with God" (Bart Ehrman, Paul's Incredibly High Christology, 2020).


Why Does the Ukulele Have a Reputation as an Easy Instrument?

Question: The ukulele, much like the recorder and kazoo, is an instrument that is commonly associated with lower-quality performances, amateurism, and a rejection of formal music education. Are there historical or sociological explanations as to why this is so?
Comment: Maybe because the performances of people like, say, Jake Shimabukuro, James Hill, Manitoba Hal, etc. are not as well known as the ones of Erick Clapton, Jimmy Page, Slash, etc.
Answer: The ukulele has a reputation as an easy instrument because it is an excellent entry level instrument, especially for children.

It's small, which makes it easier to hold.
It's small, which makes jumps and stretches on the fretboard easier
The short, nylon strings make it easy to hold down a string without pain
It only has four strings, which makes chords possible with less fingers
It only has four strings, which makes learning the positions of the notes on the fretboard easier
An acceptable quality instrument can be quite cheap

Like the OP mentions it's a lot like the recorder, which also can be a serious instrument, that can be played virtuosically, but is easy to begin with as well.
Both are wonderful instruments because of this range!
So, if you want an answer to the question: "Why don't people realize how awesome and complex the ukulele can be?" it is: because it is overshadowed by its enormous ability to be a very accesible instrument for anyone who wants to start with music.
Comment: _"... a lot like the recorder ... easy to begin with as well"_ Oh, how I wish 20-kids-simultaneously-playing-a-recorder-for-the-first-time-in-their-life music classes at school were done with ukulele instead!
Comment: @EricDuminil IOW, "It's small, which makes it easier to store"
Comment: a friend of mine bought a ukulele to experiment / have fun with and his wife hated it because to her, nothing was saying more "I'm not doing anything useful with my time" than playing with a ukulele :D but I think it's a cool instrument, easy to pick up, sounds good; you can learn the few common chords in minutes.. it's nice
Comment: Do you mean to say that the ukulele has a reputation as an easy starter instrument, because it is an easy starter instrument?
Comment: Also, tiny houses and small vans are becoming more popular, and it's easier to find space for a ukulele than for a guitar. The people in question might play guitar well already, and only want to learn enough ukulele in order to sing along while on the go.
Comment: @piiperi: :-) yes! (But also much more)
Comment: Just keep in mind that Joni Mitchell's first instrument was a ukulele.
Answer: Self-Answer:
The ukulele has this rap as being inferior mostly because almost all people who "learn to play ukulele" never get much more advanced than learning how to strum a few basic chords, then sing using that minimal playing as accompaniment.

Other instruments have this problem (the guitar arguably still does to a lesser degree), but the reason ukulele gets picked on is because the only people who are famous for playing ukulele are people who sing a song while strumming entry-level chords in basic strumming patterns (henceforth the "strum and sing" style). Piano has its virtuosos; people know names like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin, for example. Guitar has its legends, like Hendrix, Clapton, and Van Halen. Masters of their instrument. But ukulele has no such famous virtuosos, possibly because it's just now experiencing a surge in popularity.
One of the most famous ukulele players of modern times is a girl named Grace Vanderwaal, who won America's Got Talent at age twelve by singing and strumming (she's now sixteen or so). She's a talented singer, but I would hardly put the ukulele playing from her AGT performances above beginner-level musicianship. The thing is, the world associates her with ukulele rather than with singing, and it's this type of performer that inadvertently earns the ukulele the reputation of not being a "real instrument". Their voice is their main talent, but their ukulele playing is what people think makes them unique; as a result, the general public has their belief in the ukulele's mediocrity as an instrument subtly reinforced. Put another way, people learn to believe in the idea that the ukulele needs a human voice to play behind in order to make good music.

Now, there are some real ukulele wizards out there; Jake Shimabukuro is probably the most well-known within the higher-level ukulele world. The ukulele can do some amazing things in the hands of people who are willing to put in the work and really focus on technical understanding of music. But those masters aren't highly-publicized figures in the world media; ask any 15-year-old kid who Grace Vanderwaal is, and they may very well know who you're talking about. Ask that same 15-year-old kid who Taimane is, and they'll almost always have no idea.
What's more, the boom in the ukulele's popularity has flooded the ukulele community with beginner musicians who aren't interested in learning theory or spending time mastering fundamentals; they just want to learn how to play as many songs as possible, and are willing to play super-generic, basic versions of those songs in order to make learning them as easy and accessible as possible.
This, in turn, created a market for instructional materials serving that part of the community, and now YouTube is inundated with videos like "Learn To Play 15 SONGS With These 4 EASY UKULELE Chords!!!". So low-level playing gets all of the public spotlight, and high-level technique and theory is hard to access.

I'm no professional, but I've been playing for years and by my own evaluation, I'd say that I'm far above the basic levels of playing the ukulele. In my own experience, a large part of my own skill at ukulele is simply an extension of the music theory knowledge I have which I applied to my instrument; no one ever taught me how to play crazy jazz chords on ukulele. In other words, I HAD to teach myself in order to get above the basics to where I am now.
And to be fair, there certainly is some truth to the notion that the ukulele is easier than some other instruments, particularly at the beginner stages of contemporary styles of ukulele playing. Playing your first chord on an ukulele is literally (and I do mean literally here) child's play; playing your first note on a violin is a much more difficult skill by comparison. But it is certainly not so much of a difference as to limit the music made by the ukulele to the extreme basic strum-and-sing.

The ukulele is a much more expressive instrument than it is credited for, and has the potential to play much more complicated music than what it is known for creating.
Comment: Who is the Taimane you mention in "Ask that same 15-year-old kid who Taimane is, and they'll almost always have no idea"? This is the first time in your answer that you mention that name, and for all I know, Taimane is who a renowned ukulele competition is named after because s/he funded the competition.
Comment: @Dekkadeci Taimane is another example of an ukulele player who is known for their prowess at the instrument. There's a reason why I didn't mention her anywhere else in the answer, in fact: it better illustrates that she isn't well-known.
Comment: Do you have any suggestions, for the names you mention, where they play some classical piece? I can only find kitschy covers of pointless "rock music".
Comment: I wonder if too many people associate the ukulele with mediocre, but popular, performers like Tiny Tim.
Comment: There are other virtuosos (ie. John King) but I think they are not well known to the public, and so the existence of these players doesn't IMO contradict your points.
Comment: I wonder whether the Ukulele might be even easier for sing-and-strum style playing if the strings were tuned in minor thirds (e.g. C Eb Gb A)?  The overall pitch range of the instrument would stay the same (open strings would still go from C to A) but a wide range of movable chords would be available with simple shapes.  Based on second fret, for example,  D, Bb, and G major in root, 1st, and 2nd inversion would be 2-3-3-5, 2-2-4-5, and 2-4-5-5.  Dm, Bm, and Gm would be 2-2-3-5, 2-3-5-5, and 2-4-4-5.
Answer: Essentially, because it IS an easy instrument to play, as far as technique goes.
The ukulele and recorder can certainly be entry-level instruments (bit unfair to class them with kazoo I think!)  They're cheap, and basic technique is easily achieved.
But 'rejection of formal music education'?   Recorder is taught in schools with the express purpose of introducing notation.  And you're not 'rejecting' anything by noodling around on an easy instrument.   That's like saying I'm rejecting athletic training by taking a stroll in the park.
I taught for a time in the London Borough of Redbridge which, at the time, had an enviable integrated 'Music Scheme'.   The idea was that every child should be introduced to practical music-making in recorder class.  Those that showed aptitude were encouraged to take up a 'real' instrument (sorry, advanced recorder players!) with a team of visiting teachers. It all depended on there BEING a competent music teacher in each junior school to do the ground-work.  Full implementation was never going to happen of course, but we got a long way towards it, and in the 1970s this otherwise unremarkable suburban area supported four orchestras,  three brass bands, two wind bands etc. etc.
Comment: @user45266: In my experience (US; piano and bassoon; formally trained), many if not most players of wind instruments got their start in formal music education via recorder classes. These classes are intentionally basic, because they are meant to be an introduction. I don't think that makes them any less "formal."
Comment: I'll stand by "rejection of formal music education", because it's very hard to put grade-school recorder lessons on the same level as what most people would consider to be a formal music education.
Comment: @Dekkadeci Yes, it's everywhere in the US in grade school, since about the 60s or early 70s on. There's an Atlas Obscura article about it, and a Great Big Story, and an NPR article. They're cheaper than you might think... literally a few dollars for one that a dedicated kid can get an OK sound out of.
Comment: Granted, it must be a sign that there's a recorder in my sister's place (OK, and a ukulele) despite the fact that neither my sister nor her husband play either of those instruments and the additional fact that her 5-year-old son (my nephew) has never taken music lessons (yet).
Comment: @abeboparebop - The only school music education I got before joining the school concert band in Grade 5 was general music education. We got to bang on percussion instruments and had to learn note values (and maybe note names? I might have learned those first from extracurricular piano lessons I started when I was 6), but I don't think we ever blew into recorders (buying or renting one was never mandatory, sharing one is unclean). I'm Canadian, and I don't know whether American school music education nigh-mandates recorder lessons, but my impression is that Canadian ones definitely don't.
Comment: For what it's worth, in at least Finland recorder used to be part school music classes, probably because the plastic ones are one of cheapest instruments and difficult to break. I have heard that it's now been been partially replaced by ukulele, probably because it can't produce as nasty sounds as blowing into recorded with all your strength and maybe because it's more connected to current culture.
Answer: I don't have any experience with ukulele, but I permit myself a couple of observations about the guitar, which I think fit to the discussion.
Quality of sound
Plucking instruments, such as guitar, are in general less popular in "high" music than bow instruments, such as violin or cello. The reasons are quite objective limitations:

Once a string is plucked, the sound cannot be controlled (its length, strength, etc.)
The strength of the sound is also limited by the available finger movement
The height of the sound cannot be finely controlled - it is fixed by the position of bars.
All this makes these instruments easier to master, but limits their use to chamber music and recreational use.

Standardisation
Standardisation has played an important role in higher prevalence of some instruments: classes, literature, records, etc. for a classical  guitar are easily available. In Russia it has completely displaced traditional string instruments, such as 7-string guitar and balalaika. The former simply fell out of use for the lack of the above mentioned resources, while the latter is used solely for the traditional folk music.
The situation is not unique to this type of instruments: many "standard" instruments lived through similar competition from similar varieties. For example, Bach's "Well-tempered clavier" was intended (and succeeded) to popularize a specific variety of clavier, which is (nearly) exclusively used today.
Answer: The ukulele shares qualities with the recorder and the melodica, along with some other instruments, that hold it back in the pantheon of instruments in terms of respect and status as a "serious" instrument:

Limited note range
Limited dynamic range
Limited timbral range
Limited microtonality

To amplify the last point, while you can bend notes on a ukulele, it's very hard to make the kinds of bends that can be accomplished with the plain (unwound) strings of a steel string or electric guitar.
A ukulele shares disadvantages with the classical guitar, but the classical guitar has a much bigger fretboard and more strings as well as a much larger body, so it benefits from the ability to play louder, play larger chords, and play a greater range of notes.
The timbre of the ukulele is also "small" - it doesn't have a broad or complex timbre. And it's not very flexible in terms of timbre. It's hard to get a range of different sounds from a ukulele.
So while you can play chords and single-note passages on a ukulele, even ones that are quite difficult, they will never be as full sounding or as rich as what can be played on most other instruments.
There's also a kind of viscous circle where the fact that the ukulele is not taken very seriously means few high quality instruments are manufactured which means a lot of ukuleles are not well intonated and have weak timbres which causes the ukulele to be taken less seriously.
In some ways that's like the recorder. There are serious, high-quality recorders in the world (especially those played in medieval music groups), but the most common recorders are the cheap plastic student recorders that don't sound very good.


Merging duplicate sections on Wikipedia

Question: I've noticed that many paragraphs and article sections have been copied and pasted from one Wikipedia article to another, leading to excessive amounts of redundant text on Wikipedia. Do any tools, scripts, or APIs exist that would make it possible to automatically identify these duplicate sections and paragraphs (so that they can be removed)?
Comment: I want to do this programmatically because doing it manually would be extremely tedious. For example, I once found that the article "Nutrition in animals" was mostly copied and pasted from the "Nutrition" article, and now they have both been modified, they will need to be merged together again.
Comment: On Wikipedia, text duplication is not necessarily considered a bad thing by itself.
Answer: I'm afraid there's not any way to do this using the API or anything like that. However, you could probably do something with the Wikimedia dumps to find the sort of duplication you're looking for. The people already doing research might also be able to help you out.

Merging duplicate sections on Wikipedia