Is "allopathy" pejorative?

Question: Is using the term "allopathy" to describe mainstream (i.e. real) medicine, pejorative?  I know the term was originally used by homeopaths to insult real medicine, but I have heard it being used more and more lately, and am curious if there is still a pejorative sense to the term.
Comment: Related: [Why is 'allopathy' not an accepted synonym for 'mainstream medicine'?](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/100319)
Comment: Your question should describe your own efforts to find the answer before asking here. It should also explain why the results were not adequate to answer your question.
Answer: The word has no real meaning outside of the context of homeopathy. It's rather pejorative in that context. It's rather irrelevant in any other.
Comment: "Allopathic" is used in professional journals often to distinguish between homeopathic/lifestyle changes and pharmaceutical approach to primary care problems.
Comment: Well, it kind of does have a meaning divorced from the context of modern homeopathy. But it (a) is not what homeopaths mean when they describe mainstream medicine to "be" allopathic; (b) also yields a meaning for "homeopathic" different from "the activity that we refer to as homeopathic medicine". Some mainstream medical practices are homeopathic in this divorced sense (for example treating mild fever-inducing infections by keeping the patient warm). Most are not, and perhaps practicing homeopaths would not consider that a doctor giving that advice is engaged in "homeopathic medicine"!
Comment: Also, don't upvote an answer simply to show your opposition to homeopathic ideals!  This answer is short, rather opinionated, and doesn't address the real question of whether this word has non-perjorative use and meaning.
Comment: @SteveJessop but are those terms actually used much that way?
Comment: @Jon: well, I'd guess less than the second-most common meaning of (for example) the word "set", but enough to justify it appearing in dictionaries.
Comment: @StuW what professional journals?
Comment: It's been several years, but I only followed a few journals regularly, so I'll say *Journal of the American Medical Association, Primary Care Physician,*, and *American Journal of Psychiatry,* among others. "Allopathic" is the common term (as an adjective). I'm not that familiar with "allopathy."
Comment: This answer completely ignores osteopathy.  Since osteopathy is on the rise in mainstream medicine, the word allopathy has meaning in order to distinguish it from this.
Answer:
There are two kinds of practicing physicians in the United States:
  allopathic physicians (MD's) and osteopathic physicians (DO's). Both
  are fully licensed physicians, trained in diagnosing and treating
  illnesses and disorders, and in providing preventive care.

-Indiana University Bloomington web page

Modern medicine generally refers to clinical practice: the diagnosis,
  treatment and prevention of disease by a physician. That physician may
  be an allopathic physician (M.D.) or an osteopathic physician (D.O.).

-Explore Health Careers web page
It seems to me that these web pages intend to use neutral language.
Apparently, osteopathy is a later development than allopathy, and a reaction to allopathy, intended to promote whole-body health and preventive strategies and to reduce treatment with medicine. The distinction does still exist today, both in training and in practice; but in general allopaths and osteopaths perform the same roles (prescribing drugs, performing surgery, etc.) in every state, and they often make similar decisions.
In my personal experience in a family of MD's, the culture of medicine is like this: MD's and DO's consider each other to be equals in the first rank of competence. For example they would be likely to assume that an ophthalmologist (regardless of whether he is an MD or a DO) would be preferable to an optometrist. And they would generally consider in one category such people as acupuncturists, chiropractors or homeopaths, people who apparently have an occasional success for reasons that nobody really understands, and so are worth considering for a patient who cannot be treated successfully and wants to try that route.
Comment: Sorry for the wrong link it should be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy . But therein is the terminological problem. Those physicians with DO degrees, who, as you added, are considered respectable scientific medical practitioners with hardly distinguishable training from MDs, say they practice 'osteopathic medicine' in contrast with the outdated and pseudoscientific 'osteopathy', a label that is avoided and denigrated by DOs despite a historical connection in the 19th c.
Comment: DOs get MD training plus some pseudoscience. The "whole-body health" stuff is just the latest way to spin the nonsense, since they have been moving away from the more obvious quackery (and thus becoming less distinguishable from an MD). Although DOs are far from the most harmful form of "alternative" medicine preying on patients these days, I would still prefer to see more skepticism expressed in your answer.
Comment: I'm looking for clarification. Yes, your answer gives evidence that 'allopathy' is used sometimes in non-pejorative situations. But the OP asked in the context of a distinction with -homeopathy- not osteopathy. Since you mention osteopathy and not homeopathy at all, people might think that you are using them synonymously. By explaining the differences, you will make it clear what context(s) you are showing lack of pejoration in.
Comment: I don't think the term 'allopathy' was ever used by MDs, and is a neologism that has only caught on in the late 20th century, and is used only by people in favor of homeopathy (osteopathy is not a currently used label), to distinguish it from traditional medicine. People who converse from the context of traditional scientific based medicine tend to call the thing that homeopathy is not just 'medicine'.
Comment: From those two sites, is there any indication what the difference is between an MD and a DO? Between allopathy and osteopathy? And then, any reference there to homeopathy (the context of the OP)?
Comment: There's a very strong difference between a person with a DO who practices osteopathic medicine and an osteopath practicing osteopathy. The latter are considered in a [somewhat pejorative light by the latter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_MD_and_DO_in_the_United_States).
Comment: It's funny how derogative words sometimes are adopted by the targets. Consider "yankee". But this answer should also cover the fact that "allopathy" is mostly still used in a pejorative way.
Comment: " people who apparently have an occasional success for reasons that nobody really understands, and so are worth considering for a patient who cannot be treated successfully and wants to try that route"... [citation needed], especially the 'worth' qualifier.
Comment: @Mitch Well yeah… do you think that my answer ought to explain the difference between an MD and a DO? I don't think the original question goes that far. And no, my five minutes of research suggest that web pages distinguish "allopathic" from either "homeopathic" or "osteopathic," but not both.
Comment: @Mitch I'm not aware of this distinction and I cannot find it in the article you suggest. Can you quote a passage so that I can find your particular place in the article?
Answer: Allopathy is mostly used pejoratively. But in the United States it sometimes is used non-pejoratively. The connotation depends on context.
In its literal sense, allopathy is not pejorative. It is a technical term, part of an unscientific disease theory that "like cures like". It was coined by Samuel Hahnemann (in German, later borrowed into English). It was part of his classification system of all drug treatments according to the symptoms the drugs would be expected to cause in a healthy person:

homeopathic treatments produce symptoms resembling those produced by the disease (hómoios, "resembling")
enantiopathic treatments produce symptoms opposite to those produced by the disease (enantíos, "opposing")
allopathic treatments produce symptoms neither resembling nor opposite to those produced by the disease (állos, "other")

But in practice, allopathy is used by Hahnemann's disciples as a dismissive label for all medical practices that do not follow the "like cures like" theory, and therefore are supposedly useless or harmful. In the same way, someone might dismissively refer to surgery they consider useless or harmful as butchery or bloodletting. (At one time, bloodletting was common medical practice, based on the unscientific theory that the cause of disease is imbalance of bodily fluids.*)
Recently in the United States, the term allopathic medicine has begun to be used with no pejorative connotation as an antonym of osteopathic medicine. In this context, allopathic medicine means medicine as practiced by Doctors of Medicine, and osteopathic medicine means medicine as practiced by Doctors of Osteopathy. This is arguably a very loose or figurative usage, because osteopathic is not opposite to allopathic – it is not a Hahnemann classification at all. Osteopathic treatments were based on yet another unscientific theory, that disease is caused by problems in the bones and muscles and can be reversed by manipulating joints and tissues. Arguably Hahnemann would have considered osteopathy just another useless allopathic practice.
For more information, see the Wikipedia articles "Homeopathy", "Allopathic medicine", and "Osteopathic medicine in the United States".

* "You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach." ("Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber", Saturday Night Live, season 3, episode 18)
Comment: And note that since "homeopathic" is now used to refer to substances that have been diluted to be nothing but water, so-called homeopathic treatments are, literally speaking, allopathic. Many other alternative treatments, such as acupuncture for migraines, are "treating" a condition with something different, and so are literally speaking allopathic. Meanwhile, many mainstream treatments, such as vaccines, radiation for cancer, and surgery to fix damage from a stab wound, can be considered to be, literally speaking, homeopathic.
Comment: @Acccumulation Comments are used to help improve the answer: ask for clarification, suggest changes, etc. For conversation/discussion using this answer as a springboard, join us in the [chat].
Answer: In India, most usages of "allopathy" that I have seen are not pejorative. I don't think I have seen a pejorative use of "allopathy" in common usage so far. I have also seen it used by government officials non-pejoratively. For example, here are some articles from mainstream newspapers of India:

90% of Indians prefer allopathy over AYUSH - The Times of India, July 8, 2015. ("AYUSH" comprises a bunch of alternative medicine systems: Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy. There's even a ministry for it.)
WHO report sounds alarm on 'doctors' in India
The Hindu, July 18, 2016:

Speaking to The Hindu, Dr. Reena Nayyar, Secretary of the Medical
  Council of India (MCI), said, "I don't think this report has
  officially come to the MCI yet. But in general, any person practising
  allopathic medicine who does not have a registered medical
  qualification comes under quackery."

The MCI establishes standards of medical qualifications in India.
Now, unani, ayurveda practitioners can prescribe allopathy medicines, perform surgeries - The Indian Express, February 28, 2014.
Army to throw open doors to alternative medicine - Hindustan Times, January 25, 2016:

"Mainstream doctors have traditionally resisted alternative medicine
  treatment. But let's be frank, we really don't have the domain
  knowledge to dismiss it. The idea behind the experiment is to see if
  alternative medicine can work where allopathy has no answers," said
  Lieutenant General BK Chopra, director general, Armed Forces Medical
  Services (AFMS).

You can safely use "allopathy" to talk about mainstream medicine in India without accidentally belittling it.
Answer: Consider conventional medicine (cancer.gov) as a more neutral alternative:

A system in which medical doctors and other healthcare professionals (such as nurses, pharmacists, and therapists) treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery. Also called allopathic medicine, biomedicine, mainstream medicine, orthodox medicine, and Western medicine.
Answer: About the only practical use for allopathic is to split the MDs off from the DOs.  Both groups practice essentially the same kind of medicine nowadays, but for historical reasons many U.S. states will have two Boards of Medicine (BOM), a Board of Allopathic Medicine and a Board of Osteopathic Medicine. Most DOs spend most of their time practicing allopathic medicine and, one could argue, that an MD physiatrist who uses massage to aid in recovery from a reconstructive procedure is practicing manipulative, i.e. osteopathic, medicine.
Not all states will have two BOMs, (e.g. Arizona) and in those states the term "Board of Medical Examiners" is often used. It would issue medical licenses to both MDs and DOs.
Just to put the final nail in this linguistic coffin, surgeons are not always addressed as "Doctor" in the UK.
Comment: This sentence deserves its own upvote: *"Just to put the final nail in this linguistic coffin, surgeons are not always addressed as "Doctor" in the UK."* __ Notoriously confusing: *Mr.Jones* became **Dr.Jones** when he completed basic medical training and became *Mr.Jones again* when he formally qualified as a surgeon. He became *Dr.Jones again* when he took his Ph.D for some reason, but *preferred to be called Mr.Jones* as a practicing surgeon.
Comment: I just re-read my original answer (because someone was kind enough to edit more mistakes than I typically make in a month) and it occurred to me that allopathic could have been used pejoratively, especially in the southern United States, prior to the 21st century.
Comment: It is baffling to 'a

Is "allopathy" pejorative?


Which camera profile to use with SpyderCheckr in Lightroom/Adobe Camera Raw for most accurate colors?

Question: We are trying to achieve the best possible color accuracy in our product photos and we are currently using SpyderCheckr from Datacolor for that.  We're photographing the color chart, but the software supplied with it creates a preset, not a profile.  It sets HSL sliders, so there remains one unknown variable - camera profile.  So we are not sure what Profile to use.  The setting is located above basic develop settings in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom.
Comment: What camera...?
Comment: Canon 5D Mark IV
Answer: For most uses, the standard color profile for your camera ("Adobe Standard") should be sufficient. However, you may prefer the look of one of the other profiles for specific images. According the the SpyderCheckr (Windows, Macintosh) help files:

It is recommended that the "Adobe Standard" option be selected in the camera profile popdown list in Lightroom and ACR. This is the default choice, and the only option available in most cases, unless canned or custom profiles have been imported by the user. It is possible to use any profile as the basis for SpyderCheckr calibration, but its important to remember what profile was in place when the calibration was created, and to use that same profile when processing images through the resulting camera calibration preset. So the simplest solution is to leave the DNG profile at its default.

For "most accurate colors", you would need to create custom camera profiles by photographing a color calibration chart and processing it with appropriate software to create an ICC or DCP file. A different profile for each camera and lighting setup would be needed.
How often to reshoot the chart depends on your needs. At the beginning of each session and whenever the lights are changed (position, amount, type, etc) would be reasonable. You don't have to create new profiles if they aren't needed, but you won't be able to if you don't have photos of the chart.
Other software that may be of interest:

X-Rite ColorChecker Camera Calibration v2.0
Adobe DNG Profile Editor
DCamProf – open source, command line utility.

See also:

Rawpedia: How to Create DCP Color Profiles
Comment: Well, that's what we're doing. We're photographing color chart (SpyderCheckr), but the software supplied with it creates a preset, not a profile -  it sets HSL sliders, so there remains one unknown variable - camera profile. This makes absolutely no sense to me. From what I've learned so far, X-rite on the other hand creates camera profile, so we'll probably go with that.
Comment: But there is still a lot of uncertainty in the process for us - e.g. what lighting setup means? Is it just a spectral compound of the light in that particular setup (natural outdoor light, fluorescent, tangsten, combined...) or is it also the position and angle of the lights? We probably don't need to create new profile for every product shoot, but do we need to create one everytime we move the lights? Or is one profile for our studio enough until we change the type of lights, or maybe recalibrate every once in a while (weeks/months) if the lights gradually loose their original properties?
Comment: Thank you very much, we didn't find this info when we were thoroughly going through the manual, but I tried this process with two different profiles before, just to see if the results will be reasonably similar - they weren't, but I may have made a mistake at some point, so I'll do it again and report back.
Comment: Allright, so I redid the whole process with two different profiles - Adobe Standard and Adobe Vivid. The results are significantly different.
Comment: SpyderCheckr developers clearly recommend using Adobe Standard.  If that does not meet your needs, consider using different software to create ICC or DCP files.
Answer: If you are working with raw files I would expect the camera standard or camera neutral profile to be the most accurate. I suggest starting with those profiles and taking measurements/readings from the color checker to see what comes closest. If neither of those are close, then try some of the other profiles.
If none of the profiles are close enough, then edit the colors so that they are and save that as a new profile and apply it as the default.
This assumes that the lighting is standardized/consistent; because if it is not then no single profile will work equally well for all images. And this does not take into account monitor calibration which could cause the colors to appear incorrect even when they are not.
This post shows how to apply default profiles in the latest (2020) versions of Lightroom Classic.
Lightroom CC automatically adds "Adobe Default" preset to imported RAW photos
Answer: Michael,
There is a profile that matches the sRBA profile that Adobe has problems with. They say use Prophoto.icc and again that poses some problems. A guy took the profile and reworked it where it does not have the problem and renamed it  MelissaRGB.icc or you might find MelissaRGBD65.icc.  I have used it for several years with only one or two interfaces not accepting it. It is better than the Adobexxx.icc profiles. You might look here: https://photographylife.com/srgb-vs-adobe-rgb-vs-prophoto-rgb
or this guy gets into more detail and describes some of the differences:
https://x-equals.com/print-and-onscreen-color-spaces-and-icc-profiles-part-1-of-2/
Hope that helps.


2017 solar eclipse report

Question: I'm writing a report about the solar eclipse happening over north America and was wondering why looking at a solar eclipse is worse than looking at the sun regularly. In addition what alternate materials can be used to make eclipse glasses that are safe to look through.
Comment: I don't think it is worse except that the lack of solar glare may fool you into thinking you can look safely - you can't.
Comment: Maybe do a little more research on your own first?
Answer: Normally people don't focus their eyes on the sun; its always in the sky but noone usually has a reason to look at it so you never focus on it, and most know not to. During an eclipse thats exactly where you want to look and focus on, and focussing on it makes it even more dangerous (guessing due to time spent with same area of your retina receiving the focussed energy from it rather than moving around your view and unfocussed spot).
During totality (darkest part of 100% eclipse) your eyes start to adjust for the dark sky and open up, allowing even more light in; as sun comes out of totality it gets very very bright again quite quickly, and your eyes might not be ready for it - use protection as you see the diamond ring start to get bigger/brighter (or only look at the diamond ring on the way into totality for safest view, when its getting darker).
The same effect as totality is almost had by using eclipse glasses or other dark viewers that cover your head/eyes, and switching from that view back to unprotected view of the sun could be equally as dangerous for the same reason.
(I'm not an expert).
Comment: I'm not sure it's good to explain a situation involving safety without citing some authoritative source.
Comment: Don't use your own materials to make eclipse glasses. I've heard some people/places say you can use a certain high spec. of welders glasses, but even those don't usually properly filter out the other light (UV etc.) safely - and you can damage your eyes permanently without even knowing it at the time, until later (no pain receptors on the retina to send hurt back to the brain and tell you its damaging it).
Answer: It's not inherently less safe.
It's just that it's safe to look at the Sun during the total phase, but people keep staring at it after totality is over, when it's not safe anymore. That's where the problem is.
When the photosphere starts showing again, the safe period is over. You can look at the "diamond ring" for, like, a second or two - but that's it. Unfortunately, some people are lulled into a sense of security and keep looking at the Sun a long, long time after totality is over. They keep staring at it fixedly until it hurts and they feel compelled to avert their gaze - but it's quite possible that the damage is done already at that point.
It's the gradual nature of what happens after totality that traps people into a dangerous situation. Totality is over, you've seen the diamond ring for a second or two - that's it, show's over, avert your gaze, put the goggles on.

The safety of eclipse goggles cannot be confidently evaluated by amateurs. Are there ways to make eclipse goggles that are safe? Yes. Can anyone guarantee that those are safe with 100% confidence? No. So don't do it.
The only goggles that are guaranteed to be safe are those that comply with the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard.
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification
Personally, I prefer goggles made from the Baader AstroSolar Silver/Gold Film, which complies with the ISO standard, and show the Sun in its original color - as opposed to many other goggles that color the Sun green, red, orange or other unrealistic hues.
Comment: It may indeed be *more unsafe*. Your eyes are somewhat dark-adapted during totality, so your pupils have dilated. When the Sun begins to re-appear, it is very small areas that appear first, and this light is therefore imaged to a very tiny spot on the retina. You should not just make up your own explanation when it comes to issues of safety.
Comment: I don't think the danger is *just* people continuing to look at the Sun after totality. People have been known to stare at the Sun during partial eclipses. I've read accounts of people with crescent-shaped scars on their retinas.

2017 solar eclipse report


Are instruments in a symphony grouped by the composer and are chords localized there?

Question: I have been studying the score of an overture by Mozart in MuseScore and I noticed that the woodwind instruments and the one of the violins were playing the supertonic chord with the 6th degree included, and the other instruments were playing the dominant chord. How does the composer decide which chords grouped in which instruments will sound good? Is it only of the composer's whims? Also, can the different chords get discordant?
Answer: That would make the chord sound like a dominant 9th. In C, for example, the supertonic with a 6 would be spelled D,F,A and B. The dominant would be G,B,D and F. There's only one different note in each group, and blended together it all makes G9. A fairly common set of notes.
Yes, a composer can and does split notes in that way.In an orchestral setting, there is some spaciality which can make notes which may sound dissonant sound o.k. together. Of course there's also the difference in timbre and volume between instruments, which also helps.
Answer: You mean the harmony was a dominant 9th but the 9th only appeared in the woodwind?   We have to wait a little time after Mozart for true polytonality (and even then, the combination of two chords can often be analysed as an extended version of one basic chord).
Are you looking at "Marriage of Figaro" overture?  Which bar?  The constant use of pedal points is a striking feature of that piece.


Shift lens vs move body?

Question: This is a question that sounds basic, but I have yet to find an answer. When using a tilt-shift lens, if you shift the lens up 5 mm, or if you move the camera body up 5 mm, does the camera capture the same image?
Comment: Counter-move to shifting lens up would be shifting the body **down** (shifting body relative to the lens, certainly).
Answer: The other answers by xenoid and Imre are perfectly correct, but for visual reference, I've created a graphic to display the difference. The blue cone is the camera in the original position, the red demonstrates raising the camera, and the green is a camera in the original position with only the lens raised to the same position.
Comment: @xiota I think the confusion is that you have drawn your diagrams in relation to the full imaging circle of the lens while I have drawn mine to demonstrate only what the sensor sees. As I stated, my diagram does not show the imaging circle and no tilt is present. The two diagrams merely have a different point of reference. [Here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r18fe.png) I have overlaid the two to demonstrate that both diagrams show exactly the same thing.
Comment: @xiota The imaging circles are not represented at all in this diagram, we are just assuming that the circle is large enough to cover the entire area. This is a map of the extreme edges of the area visible to the sensor using only those rays that pass through the center of the lens. I admit it has been many years since I've worked with a rail camera, but I don't recall a tremendous difference in field of view based on tilt. Either way, this diagram is accurate when all planes are parallel.
Comment: You don't actually explain why the green lines are angled the way they are, you've just drawn a bunch of lines essentially and are assuming the reader will take your word for it. This would be a better answer if you explained more thoroughly.
Answer: No.
When moving the camera body, the effect of the change is in relation to the subject. For example, when taking a photo of a person, 5 mm is quite unnoticeable. When shifting the lens, the effect of the shift is in relation to the imaging area size. In the case of full frame, a 5 mm shift up moves the whole image by 21 percent of the image height.
In principle, shifting a lens allows you to select which part of its image circle will land on the sensor. Therefore shift lenses have wider image circles than would be minimally needed for the sensor size from a non-shifting lens. So you can compare it to cropping from an image of a lens with a shorter focal length; the advantage of a shift lens is that you can use the sensor area and frame on spot.
Answer: Movement of the camera is relative to the subject, while movement of the lens is relative to the projected image, as Imre states. Usually the size of the image is much smaller than the subject, so lens movements can be much smaller than camera movements. That is why you might have to lift the camera in a crane to get the same framing as a tiny lens shift.
Here are some diagrams and photos to illustrate.

In the following diagram, the crossed lines represent the light rays. The green square represents the sensor. The shapes represent the physical object and image you wish to capture. In the normal position, the circle is captured on the sensor. A 40mm lens was used to take the photo.

Suppose you wish to capture the square. You could shift the lens up (or shift the sensor down). The sensor captures a different portion of the imaging circle, which contains the square. To take the photo, the 40mm lens was shifted upwards 1-2 cm.

If the imaging circle is too small, you will see its edge when you shift the lens. A 35mm lens was used to take this photo.

Suppose you want to move the camera up, with the sensor and lens in their normal alignment. The distance you'd have to move the camera is about the same as the distance between the circle and the square, which is much greater than the distance the sensor had to be shifted. The photo was taken after raising the camera about a foot. The aforementioned 40mm lens was used.
Answer: No.

If you shift the camera up 5mm, you shift the captured image by 5 "absolute" millimeters. For instance, on a building, that would make the picture include or not the thickness of roof tiles.
If you shift the lens by 5mm on a 15mm-high sensor, you shift the capture image by one third of its relative size. If you shoot a building horizontally (to keep parallel verticals) the bottom half of your picture is the ground in front of the building. By shifting lens, you get one third of the ground and two thirds of building so you have more chances to include the full building.

See the diagram on Wikipedia.
Comment: +1 for the diagram link from Wikipedia. That makes the explanation so much clearer.

Shift lens vs move body?


Gem development - should I update dependency if depending gem has bug

Question: Hi I am building a gem which depends on the multi_json gem, which is basically adapters to all other json encoder/decoders out there.
So an user filed an issue on my gem. He has issues because multi_json has a small bug in one of the adapters, which is later fixed on multi_json's end, so it is not really my issue.
I am wondering if I should change my gemspec to hardcode the dependency to the fixed version of multi_json. I thought it would be easier to just tell the user to explicitly specify to use the fixed version of multi_json. This way my dependency won't be too strict and conflict with other gems which use multi_json.
What are the thoughts on this?
Answer: You don't have to lock dependency version entirely, just make sure that you have release that have above-mentioned bug fixed. For instance,
gem 'multi_json', '> 1.9.1'

It will be on rubygems sooner or later and you're definitely not interested in encountering the same bug twice.
My opinion is that the reliability of your library in the present is more important than future development inconveniences, which may or may not occur.
As for what to tell your users, they should've already heard (and if they haven't you could remind them of this in the README.md) that most of the critical problems usually are solved within the day and can be found in master. So if they want to take advantage of the latest fixes (and the freshest new bugs), they could specify github as a source:
gem 'your_gem', github: 'lulalala/your_gem'


How do I change the name of a person booked on a flight ticket booked through IRCTC?

Question: By mistake I have selected Mr instead of Ms in the name of person. So how to change it? I have e-ticket of it booked on IRCTE.
Comment: IRCTC was started by the Indian railways but then later spun-off. It now acts as an online travel agent as well as an e-commerce site.
Comment: IRCTC? Isn't that Indian Rail? They do flights as well??
Comment: Have you tried emailing or calling them?
Comment: @AnkurBanerjee ah excellent, TIL. :)
Answer: The general answer to this is phone the booking company (or airline directly) and be prepared to pay an admin charge. Do not leave this to the last minute as you often can't change within a window before the flight (and having tried to do this in the airport before I know that doesn't always work ...). Note that sometimes it isn't possible at all.
The specific answer can be found on IRCTC FAQ here: http://air.irctc.co.in/flights_faqs.html

Can I change my reservation (name, date and time changes)?
Customer can contact the toll free number of the call centre for any change on the booking. Customer can also call the airline for rescheduling your journey i.e. change of date time, travel etc. also.
  Changes to your booking might attract a flight change fee and the applicable fare difference, and this can be done through the airline. However changing of a passenger's name is not possible.

Now, I think they mean you can't change the name directly with the airline, but can with the booking service (although I suspect most airlines will change the name, but maybe only the booking service can prove that you are who booked the ticket).
This is the Customer Support number (from the same page):

We offer 24x7 customer support. You can call us at 1800 110 139 You can also write to our customer support team at firstname.lastname@example.com someone will get back to you within 12 hours of your inquiry.

I'd be interested to know how you get on, since that FAQ answer is a bit contradictory.
Comment: (+1) All these rules sound as if they were designed to deal with changing the *identity* of the traveller. Would they be so difficult when it's obviously a typo?
Comment: @Annoyed, actually -- in my experience, from having stuff booked for me -- most airlines will ignore an obvious typo (reversed letters, wrong Mr/Ms, whatever) at check in although this depends if there's electronic validation and where you're flying. Best to phone and try and get it changed anyway.


93 Seca 2 won't start without a jump, battery good?

Question: So i have taken the battery out and had it tested at autozone and they said the battery was fine. the solonoid is fine because if i hit the starter the motor starts to act like it wants to turn but sounds like the battery is half dead. I replaced the starter motor and it did not help, skipped the relay system and it did not help either. Is it just the battery and autozone mis read it? i hoocked it to my multimeter and it failed a load test, 12.86 v standing and dropped to 3.6 under load. Is this a bad cell, wondering why autozone isnt picking it up? just wanna make sure theres nothing else it could be besides the battery/
Comment: Test with a known good battery - if it starts properly then it is the old battery, if it does not start then something else is at fault.
Comment: Unless you try with a known-good battery, as @SolarMike suggests, you're just guessing. Remember too that if the battery is bad, you don't know _why_ it's bad, whether from age or because the bike's charging system isn't working properly. In any event, you must start the diagnosis and repair by assuring that the battery installed in the bike is healthy and fully-charged.
Answer: It sounds like the battery is completely dead to me (not just 1/2 dead, as you say ;-). I think your voltage drop during testing is pretty telling.
Several things to look at, one of them being what Solar Mike put in the comments. If you have known good battery, try it and see if everything works. If it does, the battery is confirmed dead. You could try to bring it back to life using a charger. It's at least worth a try.
Something else to consider. The lifespan of a regular battery is about 5 years. If your battery is past this age, it's most likely due to be changed anyway. Use this as a litmus when considering replacing the old battery.
You can also take the battery to a different place and have them load test it. Many places will do this for you for free. Just realize, some of the people who staff these places aren't what I'd call "qualified" mechanics, meaning they don't have a clue. They're just working a job.
Comment: I took a battery to an auto parts store for testing. They used a conductive tester. They had had not the knowledge how to use it. When it came time to select the battery CCA spec., He said out loud that it didn't matter. He "diagnosed" my bad battery as good.
Comment: @Jupiter if he said the CCA didn't matter then go to a different aka better store.


What is YCS in Online Tourism industry?

Question: While checking Agoda's website I was able to see Agoda YCS Portal. I want to Know what is YCS ?
I feel that this is associated with Online Tourism.
Comment: YCS stands for Yield Control System.
Answer: According to Agoda's official press release:

Hotels that partner with Agoda.com can also enjoy access to the custom-built Yield Control System (YCS 3.0). By partnering with Agoda.com, hotels can have their promotions marketed to a database of more than two million members via Agoda.com's targeted email newsletters. If they choose, hotels can also use the YCS to update their hotel's page across Agoda.com's multilingual web sites to tailor different promotions for different storefronts and demographics.

If you're a hotel owner you can try to register and use Agoda's system to help you optimize your income. Otherwise it's of not much use to the average tourist.

What is YCS in Online Tourism industry?


Prevent stealing HTML5 video in the browser?

Question: I'm looking for a way to securely deliver video to mobile devices. There are two options:

HLS in  tag. This works very nicely for iOS and supports adaptive bitrate, perfect for mobile. However, is seems to only work well on iOS. There seems to be only fragmented support for it on Android. I've read that Android has officially supported it since 3.0, but on all the android devices I've tested (>3.0), HLS hasn't played back on the browser.
Progressive download in  tag. This will work on iOS and Android devices fine, but the concern is that since it's just a progressive download of the video, that the user find a way to just grab that video once the browser has finished downloading it. This may be more difficult on iOS, but I'm sure it's not that hard to figure out where the browser stored the video download in a tmp folder somewhere.

Either method I'd say can be protected from deeplinking by using an expiring token approach, where the token is generated serverside with a secret key that only the content server knows about. The video request would only be valid for 5 or 10 minutes, would would kill of deeplinking.
Is anyone aware of any way around these issues? Even if I was able to prevent deeplinking, the user could still get the video itself and re-distribute. Perhaps it's just not possible?
Thanks
Comment: you are sending the content to the client. Game over.
Comment: If people *really* want to, they can always steal your video, regardless of what you do...
Answer: Rule #1 of the internet:
If you don't want someone stealing it, don't put it online.
Welcome to the circumvention arms race. Brought to you by DownloadHelper.
Answer: There's nothing you can do to stop someone who really wants to pirate your video.  There are various measures, like those you mention, that make it more difficult, but someone who really wants to copy it could find a way to capture it from memory, or even just point a camera at the screen and record the playback of the video.
It's the same way you protect your car.  You install a steering lock, an alarm and an engine immobiliser, and then someone comes alongs and pulls the car onto a flat-bed truck and drives away with it.
Bottom line - you can't stop a determined thief, but you can make theft more difficult so that you're not the most attractive target.
Answer: As I was reading the above I could easily get pass all these techniques pretty quickly.
For a project I can't describe too much because of nda, we created our own protocol based on a well known encryption method can't mention that either , military grade)  , encoded packets on the server to the protocol, and decoded on the device.
unfortunately this isn't perfect either because a lot of mobile apps can be re-versed engineered and once you get the key game over, very easy on android, of course you could periodically recycle the key, in which case even if they decompiled the android app and got the key it wouldn't work very long.
This is a lot of work and can't be implemented with html5 or hLS or event rtsp.
It also requires a custom server application that takes the video stream re-transmits it with the custom protocol.
On the other hand the protocol was transport agnostic, which meant we could use a variety of transports, tcp, IAP and bluetooth. Also would work on all mobile / desktop platforms.
The other little requirement, is couldn't use a browser, have to be a custom app.


What if a person can bear a child that is genetically identical to its parent?

Question: We all know that genetic diversity in our species (homo sapiens) is maintained by sexual reproduction. Man and woman provide each half of genetic information randomly selected from their own to their siblings, thereby inumerable combinations of gene sets are possible. What if a person (with uterus) can bear a child with 100% genetic information inherited from its 'parent'? At first it won't be a big deal because there are genetically identical twins already. Then I'd like to add another hypothesis that asexual reproduction is more efficient and faster than normal sexual reproduction. If this asexual production continues for centuries, the number of those people who are genetically identical but with different ages will increase, slowly enough to not being noticed by public but fast enough to eventually occupy a significant portions of our society. Half bred may or may not be possible. What do you expect in this scenario?
Comment: This feels too broad at the moment. "What do you expect" could cover anything. I think you need to be more specific. Note also that there exist species capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction and they tend to keep a balance of both forms.
Comment: This question is not exactly in the perfect format for this site, but I will provide to you some research on this topic that may be relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
Answer: Well, if the parent has a genetically identical child, first it would always be a female.  So the only way for a male to be born would be to have sexual reproduction.  (which would still be 50/50).  Second, producing a genetically identical child is not going to have much if any genetic drift, (they are identical!) so the 'evolution' of the female half of the species would almost stop for those that gave up reproducing sexually with males. Also meaning that they would still be capable of sexual reproduction for many many generations to come, as long as the male part of the population doesn't die out.
Answer: That happens in nature with various species. Research that to learn why it doesn't last, with one or two anomalous exceptions. Our own crops are monocultures and you can see what problema that is causing, and the history of the Banana.  Genetically identical mice are raised for scientific study: one challenges do they face?
In general, the species can't adapt to later changes in the environment, or can't cope with normal variation in the environment because of lackmof diversity.
Humans might not have to worry about many of the issues, and is already genetically impoverished (which might be why intellegece took hold: don't need to evolve thicker fur if you can make clothes; we're already unsuited for most environments we live in). But others, such as disease, might be a bigger problem.
Comment: I was half tempted to write another answer just to reaffirm this.  At first glance a layperson may think that the genetic diversity thing is minor, but it's a huge and drastic advantage.
Answer: JD already hit the tooth on the nail, lack of sexual intercourse means lack of adaptation and quick death.  Few creatures survive like this, whiptail lizards being the only one of any real size that comes to mind, and it's thought they will go extinct soon enough, from an evolutionary time scale at least.
Species that can reproduce both asexually and sexually often prefer sexual, and in particular prefer sexual reproduction at times of extreme scarcity/danger such as lack of food when you would think they would be less willing to 'gamble' genetically, because of the big adaptive advantage it gives them.
To stress another side of things, it's not just an inability to adapt to single disastrous things like disease that limits this option.  The slower evolution and change of a species is drive by sexual reproduction.  A creature can not evolve and grow (much) without it.  That means it would be rare for a truely complex creature, like humans, to reprodue asexually because the wouldn't have evolved to that level of complexity as asexual creatures.  Of course it's possible they evolved using sexual reporduction and later 'evolved' to be asexual; a short term gain that will harm them in the long term, like the whiptail lizards did.
However, look at the diversity of humanity for a second.  I'm a programer, and I'm pretty good at it.  However, I'm horrible disorgnized.  I need someone else to help me to set a path forward and decide what to priortize, and to interface with the customers to collect requirements.  I've created tools which used complex mathmatical analysis algorithms I would never have invented, but I can take the ones others created and implement them.  My tools go to other's who are trained and skilled at tasks I couldn't do, despite my building the tools for them.  When I go home I have a roommate who is a linguist, I could never learn another language, who often lets me have her left overs because I can't cook to save my life.  I make up for stealing her food by being great with kids and often entertaining/watching her son for her.
I'm not helpless, I think I am very good at a number of things, and have done quite a bit to help others, but I'm one man with one set of skills.  I survive because others who have skills I completely lack do those, in exchange for me doing the skills I possess.  I happen to be as hubristic as the next person, and I wouldn't mind seeing a few others with my skill set, and to be frank my altrusium lol, because I think they are useful and more of them could be used; however, I'll fully admit that a world full of Me's would be a sad place.  Assuming we didn't burn down the entire town in failed cooking disasters within the first week our lack of skills and predisposition for certain tasks would leave society helpless when those tasks go undone, or poorly done.
The point is that society works because we have such a huge and different selection of people and skills.  A society of only a few people, with their own unique skills and preferences, would be a very questionable society.  If we all created clones a few of the most successful would end up in charge, only to later discover that they lack skill sets that the other clones were doing which would cripple them.
In short it's a short term gain that would hurt them in the long term.
Comment: You seem to be assuming that these clones would be totally the same. In reality they would be only as alike as twins. Of course twin studies do show that twins often turn out remarkably quickly, but nevertheless people wouldn't turn out totally the same.


How can I figure out where the toilet overflow pipe goes?

Question: In the toilet tank I know that the overflow pipe is there for when the toilet tank is full. However my toilets overflow pipe in the tank doesn't go back into the toilet it goes to a pipe which runs along the waste pipe but what is that pipe attached to? where does it go. We have a major leak that no one can find and I am worried that pipe is the issue when it goes into the wall that it then isn't attached to anything.
We know none of out live pipes are the issue and not our drains and waste pipe as water is clean.
Comment: Are you in the UK, US, elsewhere? In the UK, an overflow pipe from a toilet cistern usually goes straight through the wall, and drips down the outside of the house.
Comment: Hi Andy T the wall is now and interior wall as the previous owners built a garage. It appears when they did this they didn't attached it anywhere or direct it to the new outside wall!
Comment: The previous owners (or their builders) were clearly idiots! When I wanted to get rid of a toilet overflow pipe, I changed the cistern fittings to a modern type to overflow into the bowl.
Comment: I know! the issue is that it the insurance say it is negligence but clearly not on our part! surely we could not know the issue behind a wall on a garage that was build 20 years ago! If the toilet had not been slightly going down the overflow we would have never know it was a problem. It has made so much damage. We have had to take up a floor and so many walls have water damage. Oh well at least after a year we now know what the leak is. I should hire myself out as a leak detector.:)
Answer: The overflow pipe is for when the tank is full AND the normal fill-control system for the tank fails. If there is water entering the overflow pipe either due to a failed fill control setup or due to a leak in the connections at the bottom of the tank then that is a problem that should be fixed.
I would suggest adding some food coloring or similar dye into the tank. This should allow you to quickly determine if the water is coming from the tank or not.
Comment: Hi Thank you for the answers! Much appreciated. My overflow doesn't flow into the bowl like most modern toilets but goes through a pipe into the wall. We had no clue where it went and had to take wall down and found it wasn't attached to anything just water coming out into the wall as the water ballcock wasn't shutting off the water going into the tank. Food colouring helped us identify it. We have spend £1000 having water pipes, drains, roofing and flooring taken up for me to solve it myself yesterday. 5 people have looked at the toilet none of whom identified that toilet as the culprit
Comment: Sadly dealing with bodges left behind by previous owners seems to be an unavoidable part of home ownership.


Can I still use paladin Danse?

Question: So I have just finished Blind Betrayal for the Brotherhood of Steel story arc. I chose to defend Danse. I passed all the charisma checks and everything. Even left Elder Manson alive. However, whenever I try to talk to him to get him as a companion he acts like a normal NPC. Will I ever be able to use him again? How do I get him back as a companion?
Answer: I fear you may have run into a bug with Danse, or at some point may have become hostile with the Brotherhood.  According to the Wiki, there are two bugs that could potentially happen with Danse:

If he is alive after Blind Betrayal and the Survivor becomes an enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel, then a bug may occur rendering him unable to react to the player character.

If Blind Betrayal has been completed, he may instead ignore the Sole Survivor and will only turn hostile if attacked. This appears to be a bug since the player character can still open the trade menu with him. The issue effectively removes him as a companion, but will not remove his perk.
Danse will stop talking and functioning as a companion if the player becomes hostile with the Brotherhood, even after Blind Betrayal's completion. This is evident by the fact that he is killable and functions more like a normal settler than a companion.

I would try to reload your game to a point before you've completed that quest, and see if the outcome changes.  The Wiki also says that after the quest, if you have him as a companion, the Brotherhood will be hostile towards you.  I'm wondering if this may have happened to you and now Danse is bugged.

Can I still use paladin Danse?


Lightning experience: overriding the cancelURL of an object edit page

Question: We are working towards making our application "Lightning Ready". We have one functionality that we are not able to implement in lightning. I will describe it below. Please advise how we can get similar functionality in lightning.
We have two custom objects, say PARENT and CHILD. CHILD has a lookup to PARENT. We have a visualforce page where when the user clicks on a button in the context of PARENT, we create a new CHILD record, set some of the attributes and open it in edit mode. When opening in edit mode, we also set our own cancelURL page parameter. The idea is that if the user click "Cancel", we have a mechanism to delete the newly created CHILD record.
In lightning, we tried the following options.

We can create a new CHILD record using sforce.one.createRecord.
The problem here is that we cannot prepopulate any fields (other than recordtype) of the newly created CHILD record.
We can create a new CHILD record using sforce.one.createRecord, populate the required fields, open it in edit mode using sforce.one.editRecord.
The problem here is that we do not have a mechanism to delete the newly created CHILD record if the user clicks "Cancel"
We can create a new object specific action on PARENT object. This allows us to prepopulate most of the fields before creating the CHILD record.
The problem here is that this action cannot be called from visualforce/javascript.

The only viable (and not preferred) option is

Create a custom VF page. This page will take the record type as parameter and render the fields based on a fieldset specific to the record type.
The problem here is that we will deviate from defined page layout and also have to maintain separate fieldsets.
Answer: As of Summer'17, it is not possible to override return URLs because it is not stated in the official documentation. We can only hope, that Salesforce recognizes the severe necessity for us more control over the routing.


Why is CF3COOH exceptionally acidic?

Question: The pKa values of almost all carboxylic acids lie much above 0. But this is violated by trifluoroacetic acid(-0.25). How can this be justified?
Comment: There's nothing strange in this, normal consequence of inductive effect.
Comment: Related: [Naming rules and acidity of Cl2CHCH2COOH](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/22355/7951)
Answer: Try drawing the structure of the conjugate base $\ce{CF_3COO^-}$. In general, the more stabilized the negative charge of the conjugate base is, the more the equilibrium favors that form, thus the more the acid dissociates, thus the "stronger" the acid is.
So for a stronger acid (lower $\ce{pK_a}$), the negative charge must be more stabilized. When comparing $\ce{CF_3COOH}$ (TFA) to $\ce{CH_3COOH}$ (we'll use acetic acid to represent a "typical" carboxylic acid), TFA is stronger than acetic acid because its conjugate base can better stabilize the negative charge. If we draw the structures of the conjugate bases (I encourage you to do so), we will see that they both can stabilize the negative charge via resonance in the carboxylate functional group. However, TFA also has three highly electronegative fluorine atoms which withdraw electron density "through the single bonds" via induction.
As stated above, the $\ce{-CF_3}$ moiety is an electron withdrawing group, by the inductive effect. So our negative charge (rather, the electron density it represents) will be slightly drawn through the bonds toward the fluorines, thus it is further delocalized and thus more stable.
Note that we do not have convenient structural diagrams to show induction like we do resonance, but you should be able to imagine the electrons "sloshing" more towards one side of a bond/functional group. It's the same concept as a good old polar bond like $\ce{H-Cl}$; we say Cl "hogs" the electron density and pulls it away from H. In the same way $\ce{-CF_3}$ will draw electron density toward itself.
So to summarise, in general:
Stronger acid ~ more stable conjugate base. Whenever you want to qualitatively rationalize the relative strengths of two acids, draw their conjugate bases and determine which is more stable. (If your acid was neutral, its conjugate will be negative, and it will be easier to use this method than for a positive acid/neutral conjugate.) Stabilizing factors are size and electronegativity of the atom bearing the charge, resonance delocalization of the charge, hybridization of the orbital holding the charge, induction delocalization of the charge, and hyperconjugation which donates electron density and may destabilized a negative charge. SERHIH, roughly in that order of significance.
In this example, TFA and acetic acid are tied at size & electronegativity because both place the charge on an oxygen atom, tied at resonance because both may use the carboxylate functionality, tied at hybridization because the atoms in a carboxylate are necessarily $\mathrm{sp^2}$, but now induction is present in TFA and not acetic acid, so we expect TFA will be a stronger acid.
Answer: If $\ce{CF3COOH}$ loses a hydrogen atom, the $\ce{CF3COO-}$ ion is highly stabilized by the electron withdrawing power (-I) of the fluorine atoms.
The acidic strength of a acid is directly proportional to the stability of its conjugate base.
Comment: Directly proportional is a mathematical statement with a specific meaning. Just because Y increases when X increases does not mean they are proportional, the relationship may not even be linear at all. For example, when temperature increases the equilibrium constant Ka increases, but the the relationship is quite nonlinear: K = Ce^(-a/T). Your statement literally implies there is some equation pKa = (constant)*∆H[base]. This would be very nice, and I hope it's true, but personally I'm not aware of such a model.
Comment: Your second sentence sounds a lot like a mathematical statement, is there an equation I'm not aware of?
Comment: No..It's just a statement..More stable is the conjugate base more strong the acid will be...That's what directly proportional means..
Comment: @electronpusher for that matter, recall the definition of $K_a$ for the reaction $$\ce{HA<=>H+ + A-}$$ would be $$K_a=\frac{\ce{[H+][A-]}}{\ce{[HA]}}$$ You can say that $K_a$ is *directly proportional* to ***concentration*** of conjugate base, which is $\ce{[A-]}$

Why is CF3COOH exceptionally acidic?


Is hand coding required at all?

Question: With template builders like Divi and Elementor, is hand coding still required? We are building a B2B website on WordPress and there are no transactions involved in it. Our content will vary from page to page.
Answer: Required for what? Building a template?  No if the template you choose is exactly what you want. Yes if it isn't.
Comment: Thanks. To clarify, we plan to build the template using a tool like Divi or Elementor. So, we won't be choosing an existing template. In that case, is hand coding required at all? Is there any merit in hiring a WordPress developer and getting her/him to hand code CSS, etc.
Answer: Let's say you are hungry. You can now go to the next store and get yourself a TV Dinner. There is much variety and you can get nearly every Dish there is.
However, you can not really get any Dish, and if you are feeling fancy, you won't be able to get, let's say, a Cheeseburger with asian Sauce, only the asian burger (which lacks Cheese) or the Cheeseburger (which lacks the sweet sweet asian Sauce you crave). Also, you get a lot of additional stuff in there you wouldn't really need in it, like the slice of pickle you always have to remove or the glutamate that gives you just a smaaaaall headache. Not really nasty, but it slows you down.
On the other hand, you can go to your store and get all the ingredients for your Special Burger. Nice fresh grounded Beef, Asia Sauce, two slices of Cheese and some Romana salad. While it will probably cost you more money and definitely will be more work, at the end of the evening you will have YOUR Burger, exactly as you want it. It won't lie in your stomach Like a brick and just will be perfect. Hell, you can write the recipe down and cook it for someone else in a couple of days. And if he doesn't like Cheese, you just don't put it on there.
So there you have it. Is coding required? Hell no. Are you limiting your Choices and have to live with the downsides of using a "one-size-fits-all" theme if you don't Code? Absolutely.
Comment: Thanks, that's helpful. Just to clarify, we are weighing between hiring a professional WordPress dev agency for hand coding vs. using Divi to design the look and feel we want and then getting a developer to tie them all together if required. I work for a B2B software company, and we are all new to Divi. Do you think with Divi template builder, we cannot design a custom template?

Is hand coding required at all?


5V FTDI cable for Arduimu V3

Question: I just recently bought an Arduimu v3. Rather annoyingly they did not supply an FTDI cable. I'm going for an FTDI cable where the I/O pins are configured to operate at 5v. I assume this is the right but I don't want to fry this board. Is this cable OK?
Comment: The board is a 5v one, so a 5v FTDI would be fine.
Answer: Yes, as long as the board is 5V
Answer: A 5V cable would be fine, or for about the same price, I would recommend an Adafruit FTDI Friend which is configurable between 5V and 3.3V.

5V FTDI cable for Arduimu V3


Affordable NASDAQ/NYSE Tick-By-Tick

Question: I am looking for a place to get all NYSE/NASDAQ data for every trade (price/size) on a particular ticker. The data can be delayed by minutes/hours. I am a student and am trying to use this for a project, so I am on a limited budget. So far I know of TradingPhysics offers \$0.20 per stock per day, and IQfeed would be around $100 a month. IEX seems to only report trades executed with IEX, which makes it unusable for my purchases.  Are there any better services?
Comment: Do you need almost real time data? Or data starting the year before the current would be enough?
Comment: I'm guessing I only need around 1-3 months of tick data, but it does not need to be real time, as long as I can retrieve data daily.
Answer: Check if your university has TAQ (trades and quotes), often available through Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS). Professors who research about market microstructure may use TAQ for research. If so, you can try asking a professor to get you the data for your project.
When I looked, I could not find free intraday data on Quandl.
Answer: Open an an account in TD Ameritrade which is free. You will have to write code to get ticker wise data. Quandl provides data at a cost.
Comment: Wouldn't this violate TD ameritrade terms and conditions?
Comment: As long as you are not publishing this data you are ok, quant traders use these api's to get stock prices at real time
Answer: Are you looking for historical intraday data? AlgoSeek might be worth checking out.

Affordable NASDAQ/NYSE Tick-By-Tick


Did any country adopt a straight pull bolt-action rifle?

Question: I know that Canada developed the Ross-rifle, but was it officially adopted? I'm also interested in adoption not only for infantry, but for any armed forces.
Comment: austria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannlicher_M1895
Comment: [Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt%E2%80%93Rubin) and [Austria-Hungary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannlicher_M1895)?
Comment: But thats only development of the weapon not adoption right?
Comment: Both rifles were officially adopted.
Comment: @Matt: Do you know which forces got these rifles or did all troops get them?
Comment: See wiki links above.
Answer: Straight-pulls Adopted By A National Army
There's basically three families of successful straight-pull rifles: Mannlicher started it all off, then Schmit-Rubin, and finally the Ross rifle, with the Lee-Navy as a short-lived dead-end.

Drawing of a Mannlicher M1886 Source

The Mannlicher family of straight-pulls were used by Austria-Hungary, and her successor states, as well as armies around the world from 1886 through WWII.

M1886 in service with Austria 1886 - 1918? was the first straight-pull adopted by a military.
M1888 went as far as Thailand, China, Philippines, and Chile.
M1890 Carbine used by Austria-Hungary and the Emirate of Afghanistan.
M1895 was used by a large number of armies and police units through WWII.

Swiss K31 Source

The Schmidt-Rubin family of rifles including the K11 carbine and the K31. The Swiss army adopted the Model 1889 in 1889 and the family stated in front-line service until the K31 was dropped in 1958 but was still used by reserves into the 70s.

K31/42 & K31/43 sniper rifles (video)

Three rifles in the Ross family. Source

The Ross rifles came about because the Canadians needed rifles, the British wouldn't license the Lee-Enfield, and government shenanigans. Famous for being terrible, you could reassemble the bolt incorrectly and have it bash you in the face, but it was a good sport rifle. By the time they got it in shape the Lee was available. Here's a video on the Mark III.

Canada (1905-1916, 1939-1945)
Luxembourg (1945)
UK
Latvia (1919?-?)

Inner workings of the M1895 Lee Navy from its original manual Source

And then there's the M1895 Lee Navy which is sort of a straight-pull. Best to just watch a video. It was fairly short lived, used by the US Navy from 1895 through the Spanish-American and Philippine wars. It's 6mm ammunition was finicky, and it was quickly replaced by the M1903 Springfield.

The straight-pull bolt-action rifle turned out to be just a step away from a self-loading rifle. If you're going to have the cost and complexity of a straight-pull, might as well go the extra mile and adopt a self-loading rifle. Many straight-pulls became self-loading or even automatic rifles.
Honorable Mentions

The Mondragon rifle family (video) started as the M1894 straight-pull (video) but was not accepted. The design became a self-loading rifle adopted by the Mexican army. It was the first self-loading rifle adopted by a military.
1925 Italian Prototype by MBT (Metallurgica Brescia gia Tempini), only three were produced. They were incredibly over-engineered and the design was adopted to be semi and fully automatic.
Huot Automatic Rifle modified existing surplus Ross rifles with a gas piston to become a drum-fed automatic rifle. This was ordered by the Canadian military, but WWI ended before it was fulfilled.
Answer: Switzerland uses Schmidt–Rubin. That's straight pull bolt-action rifle.
Comment: Hi, welcome to History Stack Exchange! This is a good start, but a much better answer would expand on that with some sources and additional information.


When should we not draw a Lewis dot structure?

Question: My friend once told me that technically , we should not draw Lewis dot structure of molecules containing no central atom(for example for benzene,
acetic acid).
Is there an explanation for this?
Answer: Short answer: no, there's nothing preventing you from drawing arbitrarily complex molecules according to the conventions of Lewis dot structures. They are not special, and the rules for drawing them are settled by convention and have evolved since they were first developed in Lewis's original paper. They're just one type of diagrammatic rendering of molecular structure which (probably due to their simplicity and explicitness) has caught on in pedagogy. They don't see much use beyond that. Read on for further details.
It's worthwhile to precisely define our terms here. The IUPAC Gold Book provides the following definition for a central atom:

The atom in a coordination entity which binds other atoms or groups of atoms (ligands) to itself, thereby occupying a central position in the coordination entity.

By that definition, the term is reserved almost exclusively for coordination complexes with a distinct metal atom at the center and ligands bound to it (with some exceptions for purely molecular Lewis adducts, e.g., amine oxides), where the electrons of the bond(s) originate on the ligands, rather than each atom donating an equal number of electrons in the formation of the bond(s). For non-coordinate covalent bonds, if the bonds were to be split homolytically (i.e., such that an equal number of electrons are distributed to each atom), the result would be separate, neutral atoms. Were coordinate covalent bonds to be split this way, that would not be the result.
Obviously, that definition is highly limited, and it's not the prevailing definition in my experience. The other usage of the term is essentially to refer to any non-terminal atom (i.e., one that has two or more bonds to separate atoms). There's nothing inherent to Lewis structures that prevents them being used to represent molecules containing multiple such central atoms. They're simply one representation of bonding. In practice, they don't see much use, chiefly because they're substantially less economical than condensed structural formulas or the skeletal bond-line structures (introduced in their prototypical form by Kekule), and because pure Lewis dot structures, as they were originally conceived, are exceedingly poor at representing stereochemistry.
Answer: Lewis dot structures are rhetorical devices to understand bonding and molecular structure (using the VSEPR model). Any molecule can be drawn using a Lewis dot structure if it helps you  correctly draw the structure. Often molecules (especially large molecules) are not drawn with Lewis dots to de-clutter.
Answer: Adding to GregE's answer, one particular class of molecules where a Lewis diagram could be deceptive are resonance structures.  In such molecules, there are multiple valid Lewis diagrams because the actual bonds are delocalized, meaning that the electrons are free to roam over several bonds.  One of the most vivid examples of resonance is benzene.
Here are some representations of benzene from the wiki (licensed under Wikimedia Commons):

Now look at the diagram in the middle of the top row.  It shows that there are two Kekule structures, which could be rendered as Lewis diagrams easily.  But the reason you need both is because the double bonds shown between the carbons are notional: there is no reason why either structure is preferred.  And the reality is that a benzene molecule is more like the "average" of the two structures.  The bottom row shows various representations showing the delocalized electrons, and all of these are "better" than the static Lewis or Kekule diagrams.  But the Kekule diagram is a lot easier to write down, and any chemist will understand that resonance is involved.


electrolysis of aqueous zinc nitrate

Question: Can anyone explain why in the electrolysis of aqueous solutions such as zinc nitrate, the oxidation  half equation shows hydroxide ions forming oxygen and water -   can this half equation be balanced producing oxygen and hydrogen ions - if not why not?
Comment: Indeed it can. It might even be more appropriate that way.
Also, welcome to Chem.SE.
Answer: You mean, why we write $\ce{4OH- -> O2 + 2H2O + 4e-}$ and not $\ce{4H2O -> O2 + 4H+ + 4e-}$?
Indeed, you may find both these reactions in the table of standard electrode potentials (at $E^0=+0.401$ and $+1.229$, correspondingly; also, note the reversed direction). In some sense, the second equation may even be considered more appropriate, since $\ce{H+}$ is a more abundant species in the solution than $\ce{OH-}$ (zinc salts would produce slightly acidic solutions due to hydrolysis).
But the first reaction was chosen not without reason. See, when we electrolyze something, it is anions that rush to the anode to get oxidized. Water molecules are neutral; electric field would not drag them in either direction. So this might be the reason why the equation is written this way, even if the amount of $\ce{OH-}$ is minuscule and the overall reaction looks more like the second one.
Comment: Thanks for that, but what about   2OH−⟶O2+2H+ 2e−
Comment: That's out of question. There is no such thing as H, to begin with. If you mean $\ce{H2}$, then it is still impossible. You just can't have both oxidation and reduction in one half-reaction.
Comment: I really appreciate your help.  The question that is bothering me is a "selective discharge" question .  The example has used aqueous copper sulfate.  They have given the reduction of Cu2+  as one half equation and the oxidation of OH-    as the other.  However the text has written the oxidation half equation as 4OH- →O2  + 2H2O + 4e    My query is can the oxidation equation be written as
2OH-  →O2   +   2H+    +   4e
Comment: Now you propose a mix between the two. Well, no, nobody writes it this way; it would look kinda unnatural.

electrolysis of aqueous zinc nitrate


First time user. How can I recover my BTC?

Question: I've done hours and hours of research trying to unstick my coins with no luck. I bought them off coinbase and transferred them to this stupid google app called sparecoins, from there I transferred to blockchain and then spent them from there. I had no idea really what I was doing. I didn't realize they had to be confirmed. So my money made it to sparecoins app confirmed but after that the next 2 stops it never made it. They sit stuck. Nobody stole it or used it, it's just stuck. The sparecoins app (which I should have never used) has a back up wallet button which makes a file opening the file with notepad it has this at the top "Encrypted Privated Keys (AES) Use a SHA256 digest of your password as the encryption key" and 13 lines of jumbled up letters. I've tried and tried and can't figure out how to recover these funds. Can anyone help?
Comment: Do you have transaction IDs?  It sounds like your transaction from Sparecoins to Blockchain is simply unconfirmed.   There is currently a backlog of about 150,000 [unconfirmed transactions](https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions) on the network.
Answer: Encrypt your addon password here https://myeasywww.appspot.com/utility/free/online/Crypt_Decrypt-MD5-AES-HMAC-SHA-DES-RABBIT/en?command=UTILITY&ID=2
Copy the result from sha256result.
On this site https://www.browserling.com/tools/aes-decrypt
enter the encrypted key from the "download" file in the top box, your encrypted password in the bottom
The result should be your private key, you can create a new wallet https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/signup and import via settings, addresses, import bitcoin address


When a monster is tributed due to the effect of Soul Exchange, whose graveyard does it go to?

Question: The text specifies that I tribute the target of soul exchange "as if [I] controlled it". When I tribute a monster, it normally goes to my graveyard. Is that because I control it?
Answer: To answer to the question in your title, all tributed cards go to their respective owner's graveyard. Now,

When I tribute a monster, it normally goes to my graveyard. Is that because I control it?

Yes, it goes to your graveyard, but it is because you own it.
Two key terms here:

Owner: The player who owns the card, regardless where that card may be.
Controller: The player who has a specific card under their control. In other words in which side of the field that card is.

When a card is going to be destroyed, tributed, sent, returned, etc., it goes back to it's owner's possession and to the respective destination the card was redirected (owner's GY, deck, hand, etc.)


I broke the high E string of my semi acoustic guitar. What do I do now?

Question: I bought this semi acoustic guitar 2 weeks ago. It has a pickup attached with an inbuilt tuner. I hadn't put the battery in the case and was trying to tune the high E string manually and broke it in the process. What should I do now? Should I go to a guitar store and have it repaired, or I should buy a new string and try to restring the guitar by myself? I heard it would be expensive at the guitar store so I am hesitating a bit.
Comment: I'm a trumpet player so my comment comes from playing with other guitar players.  You should learn to do this by yourself because this will happen again ... and again over the course of your playing.  Have some one teach you first (the soon to be accepted answer) gives you tips on having a guitar store show you how to do it.
Comment: Changing strings is part of owning a guitar and being a guitar player. Have a look on YouTube, there are plenty of videos which will show how to do it. You will find it useful to have a pair of small wire-cutters so you can trim the excess length at the tuning peg.
Answer: Installing a string is pretty easy and quick; I can't believe that any store would charge extra to put it on for you. (If so, can you find a different store?) But if you have any uncertainty about how to do it, there's no harm in taking it in and having them do it, but have them show you so you can do it yourself next time.
While you're at it, buy an extra set of strings so that you'll always have a new one available. Also, although strings sometimes just break for no reason, try to have someone give you some tips on tuning to make sure you aren't accidentally trying to tighten it way beyond its intended range.
Comment: I'd also add that the skinnier strings E and B break a lot more often, so I'd recommend getting one extra of each.
Comment: It's quick, yeah, but not necessarily easy. There's some skill to doing it well, like setting up the right amount of slack, winding cleanly, then cutting the tip close to the peg and making sure it's not sticking out to cut you or get stuck on things. I totally believe that a store would charge for it, though not very much.
Answer: Welcome to guitar world! Strings break sometimes - and need replacing as they're old at other times. The process is painless, and all you need to do is work out how the other strings have been fitted, leaving enough slack for two or three turns at the machine head. You'll tune it up to pitch (using the tuner!), and then have to re-tune it several times, as it settles in. Worth buying a full set anyhow, as well as another top string. Take the guitar in with you, in order to buy the same guage string as that that broke.
Comment: Is two or three turns really all that's needed? I thought four or five was recommended for the unwound strings like the high E. I also do a loop before winding: once through the peg then around and back through again.
Comment: @wjandrea - just checked over a dozen of my guitars - 2-3 is all any of them get. Seems to work there. May be the quality of the machine heads is contributory. And my top strings are .008s. Put more if you must.
Comment: "Painless" might be an overstatement. I've pricked my fingers many times on a sharp string tip :p But it gets better with practice.
Comment: Considering how often first / high E strings break I'd call it an essential part of learning guitar.
Answer: Generally what the other answers say is correct. A string breaking is a thing that happens occasionally. Replacing a string a very straightforward process, and I do not think the music store or luthier of your choice would charge you for demonstrating you how to do it, if you are not sure.
That being said, if you experience breaking strings very often on specific strings this might be caused by sharp corners on the tuning pegs or the bridge. So in this case it might be an option to get help in smoothening that out (but you can also do this yourself easily).
Answer: The high E is the most breakable string, and your ear is not used to hearing that note correctly, so as a beginner, you are likely going to go through a lot. So:

Put a battery in that thing. Let it do its job and teach you what a high E sounds like.
New single strings are about a buck, at least where I am. I try to get two sets at a time, so I'm always holding a second set in case there's a problem, but you can just get the one, and as the high E isn't wound, it really doesn't matter much of the rest of your strings are 80/20, phosphor bronze or whatever. Getting a wound string that suits your set and your instrument is much harder.
The internet contains many explanations on how to change strings. I think there must be one here. You say it's a semi-acoustic, but that's not a thing. If it's an acoustic/electric (which it sounds like), then you probably have bridge pins holding the ball-end in. There is a cut-out in many string winders that allow you to pull out the pins, so as suggested, get one. There are other bridge types, with different ways of securing the strings. Once installed and tuned to pitch, it will stretch out and go flat, so you will have to retune a lot at first.
There are cheap tuners that clip to the headstock, apps you can get and the one you say is built in;  learn to use it and teach your ear what in tune sounds like. It is a skill like any other, and it will serve you well.
Comment: Minor nitpick: "Semi-acoustic" is a tag often used for guitars such as the Gibson 335 or Gretsch Falcon, where it's intended to be used as an electric guitar but gets some of its tone from a construction which is similar to acoustic guitars. That's different from "electro-acoustic" (or "acoustic-electric") where it's an acoustic guitar with a pickup and is intended to sound like an acoustic when it's plugged in. I doubt the OP is going to be making those kind of distinctions though! :)
Comment: Funny. I've been playing and reading guitar mags since the 1980s and never seen or heard that term.
Comment: Semi-acoustic is indeed a thing. Think Gibson 335 - not solid, but with 'acoustic wings'. Been round way before 1980s!
Comment: Yeah, but while I have read lots about 335s and Tele Thinlines and Byrdlands and Country Gentlemen and Casinos, I see semi-hollow, not semi-acoustic, to name them.
Answer: Here are a few extra tips:
Since your guitar is new, buy an individual string  to replace the broken one and one or two entire sets to have on hand…or just change the entire set if you feel so inclined. Ask for a little guidance at the store. Guitar strings cost about $6-$7. Invest in a string winder ($4 and up). More expensive winders have cutters for trimming excess string from the tuning peg but a cheap one will do. A pair of wire cutters will work as well or better for trimming.
Search YouTube for how to replace strings for your type of guitar. You said "semi acoustic", I assume you mean an acoustic with electronics. That would be the same as an acoustic. Specify the string type, steel or nylon, you didn't mention which you have. I've seen some very good videos that clearly describe the entire process. Watch a bit of a few different ones and pick one you like with lots of thumbs up.
Grab a free phone app called guitar tuna. It has paid subscription services but you can decline them. It hears the note you're playing in auto mode and tells you what string it thinks you are playing and if you are too high or too low. In manual mode you can press the virtual tuning pegs to hear how each string is supposed to sound. Not having an audio reference is a big problem for people just starting out, they don't know if they're too high or too low and sometimes over-tighten and snap a string. Having an audio reference is a big help. Good luck!
Comment: @Lazy I agree the onboard tuners are generally better then tuning apps. However the problem I encounter with many beginners is that if their guitar is extremely out of tune they may not know whether to go up or down to get to the correct note. The tuning app plays audio of the open strings as a reference and also tells which direction to go to get to the correct note on a specific string if a note is extremely out of tune. This can be very useful to someone that is not yet used to  the sound of the open strings on a guitar.
Comment: I do not think the OP requires a tuning app, as I understand the guitar has an built in tuner (which should be much more stable than going through the microphone of you phone.
Answer: Tuning a string instrument and replacing strings is something you will learn well before you can play anything on the instrument.
Go on and get used to it, it is not hard.
Be ready to sacrifice few hours and few strings. Strings are cheap and you owe these hours anyway.
Of course, there are youtube videos for this. There always are, no matter what exotic activity you try for the first time.
The only risk that I am aware of:
Take care not to allow string ends to get in your eyes.
Answer: String it yourself. Since you obviously don't know where to begin, I suggest watching a video walkthrough like this one

I had a quick look and that one seems fine but there are many. That was the top hit of many when I searched for "how to string a guitar" and it's for acoustic guitars.
I didn't watch the whole thing. In case he doesn't spell it out, here's a diagram of how to attach a string to a winding post so it won't slip. You may need to left-right reverse this depending on which side of the head you are stringing.


Can a 24VDC 14amps rated power supply provide more current than it's rated?

Question: I am having some problems with understanding power supply. Can a 24VDC 14A rated power supply provide more current than it's rated? I thought the maximum current the power supply can provide is 14A. Imax= V/(Ri+RL), when RL = 0. (Ri=internal resistance, RL=load resistance) Even if I short the power supply with a wire, the maximum current that will flow through the wire is 14A? If not, what's the maximum current? Can you explain why?
Answer: It depends
Basically, there are several different possible outcomes, depending on the decisions the designer made when designing the power supply. Some possibilities:

The power supply fails. In which case, the current and voltage drop to zero, and possibly the power supply catches fire.  This is the cheapest and easiest option for the designer/manufacturer.
The power supply has an output fuse, which blows. In which case the  the current and voltage drop to zero, and the power supply can be repaired by replacing the fuse. This is only marginally more expensive than the above, so should be the bare minimum in most power supplies you can buy.
The power supply has overcurrent protection. In which case the power supply detects the short circuit, and turns the output off, or turns it down to a very low level.  It may then automatically reset after some time, or it may need the short disconnected, or a reset button pressed.
The power supply has a current limit. In which case the current stays at or near the rating, and the voltage drops to virtually nothing, in keeping with ohms law.  This is the most complex to design and most expensive to build option, and a power supply which does this will probably draw attention to it in the manual/datasheet.

In all cases, the power supply will probably go a bit over the rating before the above kicks in. This is done because the manufacturer wants to make sure it never ends up less than rated, so they build in a little bit of margin. But you should't normally use a power supply in the narrow gap between the rating and the point it fails/shuts down, as it will probably be unreliable and/or wear out quickly.
Answer: Although the supply might provided more than its rated current, you can not assume that it will. The manufacturer is guaranteeing that you will get at least 14A.
No one can say, based on the information you give, what will happen if you short the outputs. The current might limit at 14A and the voltage drop to near zero. The current might "fold back" to a smaller value. The supply might catch fire.
Answer: The amount of current that can flow is dependent on how the power supply has been designed. It's a choice of the power supply designer.
The possibilities for a supply rated at 14A are -
a) 14A - if it's been designed to limit at a constant current.
b) much less than 14A - if it's been designed to 'fold back' on overload. This provides a much lower current when overloaded to avoid turning a load fault into a fire.
c) much more than 14A - if it's an old transformer + rectifier type supply. The current will typically stop within one second if a fuse blows, or in a few minutes when the supply catches fire.
d) roughly zero - a more or less full shutdown into an overload. It might pulse occasionally to test whether the short circuit is still present.


What happens if a market order is not fulfilled completely?

Question: In trading, if a market order is not fulfilled completely then what happens to remaining unfilled quantity?
Answer: In order-driven markets the order goes to the book and will be matched with either the next incoming market or limit order of the opposite side.
The rules for the price when the market order hits another market order are a bit complicated and depends on whether there are limit orders in the book on the side of your market order.
In many markets you can control however what happens.  Either by using a different order type: market-to-limit (rest of the order is put as limit order at the price of the last fill) or market-funari (left-overs are posted again as market order in the close auction), or by using a time-in-force setting that specifies what you want: GFT (good-for-time, order will be cancelled after a certain period), GTD (good-till-date, order will be cancelled at a certain date and time), or simply IOC (immediate-or-cancel, the left-overs will simply be cancelled).
In quote driven markets it's completely undefined what happens, the dealer would usually fill your order as a whole or inform you about the problem.
Comment: Another consideration is that you are investing in a product with too little liquidity ; this could be a problem when you want to get out.


Form processing with coffeescript

Question: This seems like one of the most common coffeescript thigns to do and yet after extensive searching on stackoverflow and on google, I can't find any example of it.
For various reasons, I'm trying to have a standard rails form submit be handled by coffeescript.  Imagine a form (generated by rails) for a User class with a name (string), age (integer), and birthday (date)--so the form has the field objects named.
<code>$(document).ready ->
  $('form').submit ->
    name = form.name.value
    age = form.age.value
    birthday = form.birthday.value
    User.create(:name => name, :age => age, :birthday => birthday)
</code>
One other catch, I want it to render a different page instead of /user/ and I'm unclear how to do that.
I've tried out the code but can't seem to capture the values. I figured there would be some example online but after many different search attempts I couldn't find anything.
Thanks for any help.
Answer: You might want to look into a client side framework like Backbone.js
This will let you modify javascript representations of your model and sync it with your rails app through a restful api.

Form processing with coffeescript


Enforce maximum content width in Safari (Lion full-screen on big monitor)

Question: Web sites vary as to whether they enforce a maximum width for the content within the window. When running Safari full screen on Lion, is there a simple way (without rolling up my sleeves and playing with style sheets) to establish my own maximum width? Lines of text are too long if I happen to be connected to my 24" monitor, but I like how this full screen mode maximizes vertical space.
Answer: You can change the width of each page in full-screen Safari.
Move your cursor all the way to either side of the 'window', until you see the normal window resize cursor. Click and drag in, and the 'window' will shrink horizontally.
You can set a different width for each tab.
Comment: Does this still work...?  I can't get it to work anymore!  :-(
Comment: That is just beautiful. A pity it's not very discoverable, but I'm not going to forget that sweet trick. Thank you!
Comment: Beautiful, just beautiful.
Answer: If you would like to enforce a maximum width across all web sites permanently, you can use a user style sheet file (Safari Preferences → Advanced → Style sheet) with something like the following content:
<code>html {
  /* adjust number to taste */
  max-width: 800px;

  /* horizontal centering */
  margin-left: auto;
  margin-right: auto;
}
</code>
Nathan's answer is probably more useful, but this is how you could do it if they hadn't included the resizing feature.
(This has a chance of breaking the layout of any web site that's using the same approach to set up a smaller column width than you asked for.)


Where is Ivan the Terrible's Library?

Question: During the confusion surrounding the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the library of the Byzantine Paleologi Emperors was sent north to Moscow and installed by Ivan III under the Kremlin. The Kremlin was rebuilt in brick to protect this valuable new addition, which was nothing less than the library of the Roman Empire. Following the death of Ivan IV, the location of the library was lost.
Comment: Historians and archivists have been [searching for it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Library_of_the_Moscow_Tsars) for a long while without success. The odds are slim that random people on the internet will know where it is or why they haven't found it. :-)
Comment: All these stories about the library brought from Constantinople are speculations. There is no hard evidence of the existence of this library.
Comment: This question would be improved if provided sources/citations.
Comment: Perhaps the proper authorities in Moscow may be reading...? You found it after 9 minutes. What a prize for the glory of the third Rome, Moscow Russia!
Comment: Those that would tell don't know. And if anyone does know, they're not likely to tell.
Answer: As Denis observed right away, no such library is known to exist.

Where is Ivan the Terrible's Library?


Restore a site collection from Backup-SPFarm

Question: There are several site collections under a single app and unfortunately they are all in same database. And we dont have database backup that old that we need. Anyway we have automated backup-spfarm files but we want to restore only a single site collection. How can we do that? Restore-spfarm seems can not restore single site collection.
Answer: Yup, you can't restore a single site collection from farm backup.

You have to restore farm backup in different (test r qa ) farm.
Now Backup Required Site Collection From Here Using Backup-spsite
Now Restore That backup into your required environment using restore-spsite
Answer: If the site collection is the only resident of its content database, then you should be able to target the content database with the -ITEM parameter for Restore-SPFarm.
Since you target an individual site collection lives in a content database with more than one site collection in it, you have to consider one of the following options:
Restore the farm backup content database to a different farm, then do a Backup-SPSite of the target site collection and restore that backup to your production farm.
Use SQL Server backups, restore the backup as a new database in your instance then join it to your farm as an unattached DB and do a granular restore from that unattached DB.