What is the use of Gemfile in rails?

Question: What is the use of Gemfile in rails?
How to use Gemfile?
Answer: During your development in Rails, there will be times where you will want to provide some functionality which is required by you, but either you don't know how to do or you don't want to implement it on your own since a lot of work has been put into its development by talented developers.
These developments which you might need (user authentication, message system, asset handlers, geolocation, pagination system, linking to exterior services such as Amazon AWS, and last but not least Rails itself) are called Ruby Gems. These are ruby software packages, not necessarily relating to Rails, but since Rails is based on Ruby, 98% of the gems can be made availble to your Rails webapp code.
Lots of gems can be found in github, but its funner to search for gems via ruby-gems or ruby-toolbox
Your gemfile is a list of all gems that you want to include in the project.
It is used with bundler (also a gem) to install, update, remove and otherwise manage your used gems.
The gemfile has another purpose - you can group gems in :development, :test, :assets, :production, etc groups and Rails will know when to include the gems. For example:
group :development, :test do
    gem "rspec-rails"
    gem "factory_girl_rails"
    gem "guard-rspec"
end

Note that on Rails 4, the assets group has been deprecated
These gems belong to development environment and the test environment since they are for testing the application. You don't need them available in the production environment (you could, but that will bloat the memory unnecessarily).
So - To use the gemfile, simply write the gem you wish to install such as
gem 'devise'

make sure to install bundler beforehand (in your console/cmd/ssh) with
$ gem install bundler

and then write in the console
bundle install

you will notice another gemfile appears! Gemfile.lock
This file, as you will see if you open it with a text reader, lists all your gems with their version and their dependencies. This will come useful when you need to know which versions of the gems you installed.
For more reading on the Gemfile - read on the bundler page
for information regarding picking a gem you could start with this
Good luck and have fun!

Ok, so whats this Gemfile.lock that got created?
Gemfile.lock, as the name suggests is a locking on all the versions of all the gems that got installed. So if Gemfile is what required to be installed, the lock file is what got installed and what version are actually required to get the app up and running.
If you don't have the gems in that specific version (as specified in Gemfile.lock) rails will complain and you will have to either install the missing gems (via bundle install) or fix any conflicts manually (I believe bundler will give you some clues on that)
Some things to know about Gemfile.lock

if you accidently delete it, it will get regenerated when you run bundle install. If you accidently delete Gemfile, you are out of luck.. You should use git :)
Heroku doesn't care about Gemfile.lock since it will reinstall all gems. So for Heroku, you must set the gem version you want, or Heroku will always install the latest version of gem, which may cause issues
Keep the Gemfile.lock in your project so you will always know what version of gems make your app work properly.
Comment: I'm newbie in Rails and your explanation is really useful !
Comment: excellent thank you @NickGinanto - would you also know the purpose of the Gemfile.lock?
Answer: Gemfiles are configuration for Bundler, which is used to manage your application's Ruby dependencies. That website includes a lot of documentation, including the Gemfile manual page.
Answer: Explanation by analogy
You want to build a car. From scratch. You need to build: a chasis, engine, corroborator, radiator etc.
Gems allow you to utilise car parts which other people have made before
Everyone's who's ever built a car has needed the same things.
You needn't reinvent the wheel. Why make your own engine etc when you can get it straight off the shelf? What if you could get one of the best engines around, created by the most talented engineers in the world, without lifting a finger? Are you gonna spend a year trying to make your own?
So basically rather than make everything yourself, you write down a shopping list of all the parts you need:

Rolls Royce Engine
AutoLive seatbelts
Michellin tyres.
PIAA Night headlights
etc etc.

That my friend, is basically your gem file!
Answer: Your system can have lots of gems ... thus can have multiple versions of same gem.
A Gemfile specifies the list of gems with their versions that shall be used/loaded/(install if not present) whenever you run your rails application. or anything with bundle exec . .
Answer: Firstly, what is a gem?
According to Wikipedia:

RubyGems is a package manager for the Ruby programming language that
  provides a standard format for distributing Ruby programs and
  libraries

Gemfile

A Gemfile is a file we create which is used for describing gem
  dependencies for Ruby programs

Now, in very very simple words:
Gem can be thought of as a library which you can use in your code.
Example: faker gem
Your code can use the functionality of faker gem to produce fake  data.
Now you can list all the gems that your project requires in the gemfile.
When you do a bundle install, all the gems in your gemfile are installed for you.

What is the use of Gemfile in rails?


How can I prevent my cat from killing animals and birds?

Question: Please help and share your ideas/experience! It is hard to keep my cat inside, he is literally begging to let him go. But he is a real hunter… Rabbits, birds, chipmunks - he eats them all. I hate this. He eats well at home, but hunter's instinct prevails. I put 2 ring bells on him, not sure it helps, but at least other animals can be warned somehow.
Any suggestions are appreciated, even obvious ones.
Somewhat related: Is it possible for a cat to run down a wild rabbit and kill it?
Comment: Classic solution is indeed to bell the cat, though some cats learn to muffle the bells. Not letting the cat go outside is another viable option; mine are allowed onto the fully- screened porch but not fully outside and seem content with this compromise.
Comment: Invisible fence is less likely to work on cats than dogs, since cats climb. And it doesn't keep other critters out of the zone you have allowed the cat into. Frankly, if that's what you are considering, you might just want to keep the cat indoors... or give up, recognize that you adopted a predator and that hunting is a legitimate form of lay for them, and learn to cope.
Comment: @keshlam  I've considered this option (screened porch). It definitely would work for many cats, but not for my little rogue. Thanks for the input!
Comment: What about some ultrasound device which would warn other animals (kind of "ultrasound bell")? Is there exist something like this?
Comment: Anything they will hear, you'd cat will also hear and be annoyed about.
Comment: Maybe cats and birds can hear it in different frequency. Not sure about rabbits :(
Comment: Probably I should try invisible fence (like for dogs).
Comment: Just wanted to share:found "PetSafe Premium In-Ground Cat Fence" at Amazon. Still thinking about buying it.
Answer: My cat also went through a stage (of about 5 years) where she caught and killed everything in our garden and brought it home.
The only thing that worked was to tire her out by playing games with toys and a laser pointer during the evening before bed.  Then she was too tired to go out and her passion for hunting was also satisfied with the toys.  It was hard work (because if I didn't do it she'd be out hunting again) but it was better than waking up in the dead of night to pick up tiny carcases.  So, I advise purchasing some toys (the ones with the feather on the end of a string/stick work the best from experience, or a laser pointer) and exercise your cat every day to tire him out.
Answer: I'd like to add a bit about what's been discussed in the comments; there is really not a lot you can do other than tire the cat out. If you put a bell on him, he will probably do exactly the same as my old cat: make a wonderful sound when he's wandering around, but the moment it's time to hunt, lock down his chin on the bell and make his approach. The only difference it made is you could hear it jingle every time he hit his prey.
Also, the other answer about yelling at the cat is the worst possible choice; the cat is bring you the food because it loves you a lot and wants to help take care of you, yelling at it for doing this will definitely offend your cat and it certainly won't understand why. The only difference it will make is the cat will bury its excessive prey instead of bringing it to you; well, and it will also think you're an a**hole.
Comment: Did you have any experience with invisible fence? Just thinking...
Answer: When you catch your cat with a animal in its mouth yell at them and take away what the animal they caught this has worked for me with 2 cats after chased and yelled at them for it they stopped.
Comment: Did they stop killing animals and birds, or did they stop showing you that they killed something?  The behavior that you changed might not be what you think it is.


Dimension difference between Illustrator and Photoshop CS5 jpegs

Question: I've saved a two-colour Illustrator graphic as a jpeg, 600px width. Then opened it in Photoshop, where it opened at a width of 1270px. Easily rectified, I know, but why would Photoshop open a file from sister software inaccurately? Isn't compatibility supposed to be the whole point of the Creative Suite?
Answer: When you save a JPG in Illustrator, you can choose the DPI (dots per inch) that you export it as. Illustrator defaults to 150 dpi for its exports. When you export at 72 dpi (screen dpi standard), you will be able to import it at the same size.
Answer: Try to export the graphic from Illustrator but before exporting, choose 72dpi and then open it in Photoshop and see how it looks.
Maybe you exported with a higher dpi, and photoshop resampled the image with the dpi that you export from illustrator.


What is it called when opposite colored pawns up against each other?

Question: When a white pawn and a black pawn are touching on a file, what is it called?
Answer: With the exception of Hans Kmoch's attempt to give it a name, which never caught on (I have never seen anyone else use it anywhere), they really do not have a name that I have even seen.
I probably have seen this referred to mostly as "two opposing pawns", but that is really just English rather than a specific chess term.
Answer: I think what you're asking about is referred to as a "blocked pawn".  There is another question here that asks basically the same question, except in reverse...  A pawn can also be blocked by another of the opponent's pieces, rather than another pawn.  In either case, it can't make any progress unless the pawn/piece blocking it somehow goes away, or unless an opportunity arises for it to capture on an adjacent file.
Comment: But a blocked pawn could be blocked by other things, like a knight.
Comment: True - I edited my answer to reflect this.
Answer: According to this post, pawns that block each other are called a "ram".
Comment: I made a comment about that. Kmoch certainly gave it a name, but if you look through his list of items he gave names to, you will see how strange most of them are, and how very few caught on. The only ones I see in that list that are common are "backward pawn", which he gave his own crazy name to also, "chain", "center pawn", "double pawns", "doubling/undoubling" (which is just English), "passed pawn", "outside passer", "protected passer", and "wing pawn". Those all predated his book, but then, he made up a BUNCH of stuff, and I can see that any of it really caught on. If it doesn't catch on,
Comment: is it really what something is called? I would say overall, no, since no one uses the term "ram". All that said, I am not saying that your answer is incorrect, but it is a matter of opinion, and can go either way.
Comment: @PhishMaster The term is also used at https://www.chessprogramming.org/Pawn_Rams_(Bitboards)
Comment: I am not saying that no one possibly ever uttered that word in that context, after all, he wrote what was probably the first book dedicated to pawn play, but I am saying that it never REALLY made it into widely-accepted chess vernacular. I would also point out that the site you quoted, although the origin is clear, they are using it more in a programing chess context, rather than about chess play.
Comment: I'll agree that I never heard of it before, and while searching *did* bring it up, the search doesn't reveal nearly as many mentions as it would if it were widely used by the chess community.
Comment: This is decently common terminology in the computer chess community, I believe (hence the chessprogramming.org mention).
Answer: For the scenario where one pawn is on the second rank and the other is its sixth rank but cannot be captured by a pawn on an adjacent file, YouTube vlogger Kingscrusher coined the term "thorn pawn".  The chess engine Leela Zero seems to establish thorn pawns quite frequently as part of its strategy, and they can be amazingly effective at limiting enemy mobility.  If e.g. Black has castled kingside and the king is at g8, a thorn pawn at g6 can make it impossible for Black to establish f7, g7, or h7 as escape squares.  If White keeps a rook ready to pounce on the eighth rank, Black will have to keep a rook on the eighth rank.  Unless or until Black can resolve that situation, White's thorn pawn will enormously upgrade the playing strength of White's rooks and downgrade the playing strength of Black's.


Why is there no subject between "guess" and "getting"? and why does this sentence use "guess" instead of "guessed"?

Question:
Mike: So you two are finally gonna get hitched. who popped the question? was it you? Matt, or did you propose to him, Allison?
Matt: I decided to be the romantic one, I took Allison to the park where we had our five-year anniversary picnic, and asked her there...
Matt: she was in a bad mood that day, I almost lost my nerve, I thought she was gonna turn me down
Allison: He's right... I almost left him in the park. I had a terrible migraine. Stress at work. And he'd been acting so strange, I guess getting ready for the big question.
Comment: What is this from?  What do you think is wrong with it, and why?  Could you please add more detail to explain what you think would be correct?  Also be aware that spoken dialogue is not always grammatically correct -- it's normal to  skip words when the omission doesn't change the meaning, or it's obvious what was omitted.  In this case Allison omits "he was".
Answer: There is no subject because it's redundant. Alison could say: "I guess he'd been getting ready for the big question". But that has been said at the start of the sentence so there is no necessity to repeat the same thing.
She is talking with Mat and Mike now. And she is giving her opinion now that's why she uses Present Tense


Looking for resources (papers, books) that explain the impact that non-random sampling has in test statistics

Question: The majority (if not all) of test statistics assume random sampling. Consequently, probability values obtained in t-tests, ANOVAs, regression, HLM, etc., are intrinsically linked to the assumption of random sampling.
However, in social sciences, it is often the case that random sampling is not possible, as you resort to convenience sampling (e.g., depressed individuals, autistic individuals, etc). Do you know of accessible - meaning not heavily mathematical - resources to better understand how results can be interpreted in light of convenience sampling and the overall trends/impact non-random sampling has in the interpretation of results?
Comment: Some tests rely not on random sampling but random assignment to treatment (the problem then becomes one of generalizing the conclusions to unrepresented or heavily under--represented groups, but -- if the groups of main interest are well-represented this may not be an issue, as long as the limitations of the conclusions are made clear).
Answer: Missing data is an important source of non-random sampling, in particular if you are running multivariate analysis, where some particular regressor might be missing. This paper is a gentle introduction to the issue. This is a great book.
In the context of panel data, I would start by looking at the literature on unbalanced panels. This is the case of some units not having the full set of observations. This is directly related to non random samples, as the patter of selection might be non-random. Here is a nice presentation on the topic. Here is a fairly recent review paper.
A common solution to non-random samples is the use of weights. I find this introductory note, by the UK Data Service, very illuminating. It describes the issue and possible solutions.
The issue of clustering, related to the above, is also of major importance. Some datasets are constructed based on clustered sampling. This article, albeit a bit mathematical, deals with robust inference when non-random sampling is due to clusters.
Comment: What a great reply. Thank you so much luchonacho, I will make the best of it by reading the documents you suggested. Have a great day!
Comment: @StatsIliterate You are welcome! Once you feel this answer provided you the answer you were expecting for, do not forget to makr it as "solved".
Comment: The sense in which samples with missing data are non-random is very different from the sense in which convenience samples (the subject of this question) are non-random.  The references you supply all implicitly assume the samples indeed were random at the outset but, for various reasons, not all data could be observed.  In a convenience sample no randomization is used at all.  Thus, the methods of interpreting and analyzing convenience samples tend to differ substantially from methods of dealing with missing data in random samples.
Comment: Hi whuber. Thank you for your comment. Based on your assessment, are there any references that you'd feel comfortable recommending?
Answer: However trivial it may seem, Wikipedia has a nice article on non-probability sampling. The bottom line of the article is that non-probability sampling techniques are not intended to be used to infer from the sample to the general population in statistical terms.
As far as statistical inference in case of complex probability sampling designs beyond simple random sampling is concerned Sharon L. Lohr's SAMPLING: DESIGN AND ANALYSIS seems to be a good resource.


My German student visa expired last month. Can i travel back to India?

Question: I am a language student in Germany. my visa has expired a month ago and i have applied for an appointment for visa renewal and got the appointment for 4th February 2019.But due to a personal issue i am discontinuing my study in Germany. so can i travel back to my home country India immediately without renewing the visa on 4th february 2019. without any special papers or documents, that is, with only my passport? if i need any documents where? how? should i get it?
Answer: Overstaying your visa is illegal in Germany. The Act on the Residence, Economic Activity and Integration of Foreigners in the Federal Territory provides an English translation of the consequences of overstay. It very much depends on whom you will meet in this process. My best guess is that both renewal and travelling out of Germany will be an issue at the moment.
Travelling out of Germany without getting your visa fixed wouldn't be my advise. My advise would be to ask for help at the 'Ausländerbehörde' and be as polite as possible. If you leave the country without doing so, you would face a fine and you would not be allowed to re-enter. Your best bet is to renew the visa first, you'll probably have some stern words of the officer involved but at least you have the possibility to return and you might not have to pay the fine.
Comment: but the appointment for visa renewal takes so much time. i applied for the appointment as soon as my current visa expired. it still gave me a date on 4th February.
Comment: I don't know about India, but in Europe it's quite common that making an appointment with the authorities takes some time. A couple of weeks doesn't sound uncommon to me. It's thus advisable to plan ahead and to make sure you have an appointment before the visa expires. I'm sure you'll be fine in the end. But  awaiting this appointment would be your best decision. I don't know about the personal issues, giving them a call and explain your situation might give you priority if applicable.
Comment: In case others read it, you should have applied for an appointment long before your visa expired. If you stay, there is the risk that you will get a strong telling off, or a fine, or possibly thrown out. If you go to India and try to come back without a visa, it is close to certain that you won't be let in.
Answer: If you applied for your visa renewal before your old visa expired, you should have received a "Fiktionsbescheinigung" (§81 Abs 4 AufenthG, https://dejure.org/gesetze/AufenthG/81.html). This document is usually as good (edit: for travelling between Germany and your home country) as the visa you had before.
At least this is how it works for people who have a visa for attending a regular university. For language courses at private language schools it may or may not be somewhat different.


Website Copyright Laws under Intellectual Property Laws?

Question: What are the laws regarding Copyrights pertaining to copying of website templates ( which is an intellectual property )?
Answer: As far as I'm aware, there are no specific laws relating to the copyright of web site templates, at least in the United States.
That being the case, to the extent they constitute copyrightable material, exactly the same copyright laws apply to them as would apply to a song, a painting, or a novel.


My dog scratches at the floor during fireworks. What can I do to make him feel safe?

Question: Sometimes when there is a thunderstorm or fireworks my dog will become restless and scratch at the front door or back door. If I open the door he doesn't move, but if I walk away he will begin scratching again. What can I do to make him feel more comfortable during these moments?
Comment: Some times there is nothing you can do.  I have girl that will just hide in the shower.  Holding her does not help.
Answer: This sounds like an anxiety reaction that your dog is having to the loud noises.
My dog has several anxiety reactions that he trots out and my response to them is all the same: distractions and affection. Fireworks are one of the more difficult ones to distract him from because the noise is persistent, but at a minimum I try to make it a point to hug him and pull him into a family cuddle pile.
This lets him feel safe regardless of the cause of the anxiety. Sometimes I think he's anxious that he'll be hurt, other times I think he's worried that either my spouse or daughter will be hurt. Regardless, the family cuddle pile is my go-to for fireworks since everyone is happy and content, regardless of the external noises and it does seem to help bring him down again.
If your dog's anxiety doesn't respond to positive reinforcement techniques like this, it might be necessary to consider sedative treatments from your vet instead. If you go this route, just make sure to give them to your dog sufficiently in advance that they don't suffer through the entire anxiety-inducing event and then fall asleep afterwards.
Comment: Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately my dog doesn't like to be cuddled during storms (which I have tried multiple times). I've also given him sedatives but they have completely knocked him out for extended periods of time which makes me very nervous. I'm glad to hear the cuddle pile works for some pups!
Answer: Have you tried a thundershirt? They are relatively inexpensive and provide a sort of "hug" for your dog in moments when it is anxious. I have a very reactive dog to people coming over to the house, and this seems to keep her calmer. I also know friends who swear by the Thundershirt for their dog during fireworks or lightening storms.
Comment: I have not tried a thundershirt. My only worry would be that the dog might overheat with it on. Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely look into it.
Answer: Is your dog crate trained? If not look into crate training. Give your dog a safe, secure and positive place with the crate. When your dog feels unsafe or insecure they will automatically go to their safe space which will become the crate. Also work on some sound desensitisation, it doesn't work well with artificial sound but it's something.
Play thunder sounds just at a normal level and play with your dog, give the dog treats. If the dog is comfortable turn up the volume a bit and repeat, continue this making it louder and louder remembering it'll take time and to take it slow, if your dog seems worried by the sounds then turn it down a bit and take a step back.
When you feel your dog is comfortable enough start to take the dog outside during a storm and play with the dog, make sure you stay upbeat and excited and make it the funnest most exciting thing ever!
Change your dogs mindset about these things rather than masking it with medications or other techniques and you'll have a happier and more secure dog in the long run.
Good luck!


How to wire a 2 bulb ceiling light to two different circuit breakers

Question: We live in a 2 unit townhouse that had a flush mount ceiling light in the shared hallway. Each bulb was controlled by a switch in each flat. When we turned on our light switch one bulb lit up, when the other flat turned on their switch on the other bulb lit up. If both switches are on both bulbs lit up. Each flat has their own breaker box and each bulb was wired to their respective switch and breaker box. When our ex-tenant was here they took it upon themselves to change the fixture and now nothing works. We would like to know what type of light to buy and how to wire it to get the same results we originally had.
Comment: Where in the world is this townhouse located?
Comment: We live in Wisconsin and the contractor that built the house in 1964 was an electrical contractor.
Comment: Yes, where in the world are you?  I suspect this arrangement may not meet local electrical regulations (it certainly wouldn't fly in the USA, as 210.25(B) prohibits shared area branch circuits from being fed by equipment that feeds an individual dwelling unit or tenant space)...
Answer: Any fixture with separate leads for each bulb socket exposed in the housing should do. In many cases they pairs of leads are connected together in such a way that you can clip off the ends to separate the wires. While such modification may void warranties and UL listing, it's not inherently unsafe.
Comment: Since this _is_ unusual, some unusual work may need to be done on the ground connection. Usually a fixture will have a single ground point for the entire fixture assuming the whole things will be on a single circuit. As I understand it, it's not safe to have two different circuits share a ground, especially if they go to different panels that may be individually grounded. How should that be handled?
Comment: @FreeMan Good point. Imagine if both units have separate services with separate grounding rods.  One has a lost neutral from the pole.  Neutral current will path through the N-G bond, GEC, **dirt**, other unit's GEC, other unit's N-G bond to earth.  If both main panels' grounds are tied with #14 wire, that will have higher conductivity than the dirt... and will carry the lion's share of current.  Regardless of how much that is!
Answer: This is a really strange configuration. A better way would have been to have two separate fixture but I'll y to address just returning it to the way it was.
You'll need a two bulb fixture with each bulb in it's own socket and individually wired. Then turn off both breakers to the fixture and determine which two wires from each unit control the the light. It could be a white wire and a red wire from each unit or maybe a different color than red, if in the USA. Connect the colored wire and the white wire from one unit to the colored and white wire from one of the sockets in the fixture.  Do the same for the other unit and other socket. Connect any ground wires and mount the fixture. Add the bulbs and turn on the breakers.
Comment: I don't think the grounding would be an issue. I it's a conduit installation, the grounding is all tied together anyway. If  it's NM-B, grounds would still be tied together.  You could ground it with just one ground from a unit or tie both together.
Comment: Since this _is_ unusual, some unusual work may need to be done on the ground connection. Usually a fixture will have a single ground point for the entire fixture assuming the whole things will be on a single circuit. As I understand it, it's not safe to have two different circuits share a ground, especially if they go to different panels that may be individually grounded. How should that be handled?
Answer: You just need a 2-lamp fixture which provides separate neutral wires for each lamp.

Many fixtures provide only one hot and one neutral, and internally split it to the 2 lights.  You don't want that.

A few fixtures provide only one neutral as above, but give you 2 separate hot wires - that's so you can have dim/bright control. You don't want that either. You mustn't use that, no matter how tempting it is!

Some fixtures provide a separate hot and neutral wire  for each light bulb socket, so 2 blacks and 2 whites.  That is the one you want.
Comment: Thank you all so much for your help. After weighing the pros and cons of the situation I believe I will go with 2 separate fixtures.
Comment: Any tips on finding such a fixture?  The wiring configuration is not part of the advertising as far as I can tell, but I need to find one.
Comment: @DonBoitnott Talk to your lighting supply house, they work with their lines of fixtures all the time, and they'll be able to help you select one.
Answer: You'll need to do more than mess with the fixture to fix this situation properly
Right now, the arrangement you have with the common-area fixture "split in half" and fed from breakers in both tenant panels is a violation of NEC 210.25(B):

(B) Common Area Branch Circuits. Branch circuits installed
for the purpose of lighting, central alarm, signal, communications, or other purposes for public or common areas of a two-family dwelling, a multifamily dwelling, or a multi-occupancy
building shall not be supplied from equipment that supplies an
individual dwelling unit or tenant space.

So, you'll need to fix the underlying problem that your building has, namely that there is no electric meter or service disconnect devoted to the common area circuits, in order to have a Code-compliant light fixture in the common area.


Can lens filters be use in point and shoot cameras?

Question: I have a Canon sx520 hs. I wanted to know whether I can use lens filters like a UV protector or the one that blurs the background?
Answer:
I wanted to know whether I can use lens filters like a UV protector

Yes. A $20 adapter is available that lets you attach 67mm filters to this camera.

or the one that blurs the background?

You can blur the background without a filter. Your camera has a max aperture of f/3.4 at the wide end, and that should be wide enough to get some bokeh especially if you can put some distance between the subject and the background. Practice shooting in aperture priority (Av) mode so that you can set the aperture yourself, and go for the largest aperture (i.e. smallest f-number) you can at the focal length you're using.
Answer: First, I advise, never mount an optical filter unless the good outweighs the bad. All digital cameras have a UV filter incorporated in cover glass that protects the image sensor. All modern color films have a UV absorbing layer atop. That being said, the UV filter is the most popular, its primary good is to protect the camera lens from scratches and abrasions.
Black & white film does not always reproduce color as we would expect. Red, often reproduce too dark and puffy white clouds don't stand out against a blue sky background. We all had a gadget bag filled with filters to enhance. Color film slide and movie film also benefit from the correction filters we carried. Not entirely true for color negative film, we could filter the camera but more often we filtered during the printing stage.
Digital photography is another story. Most of the time we need not filter because we can apply all these techniques and more with simple computer editing.
What are the down sides to optical filters? These filters must be optical flats, if not they induce distortion. It is more difficult to make and optical flat than to make a lens.
What filters should you chose for the digital camera? The most valuable filter is the polarizing screen.  It also acts like a UV to cut haze. Next is a granulated neutral density filter. Next is a strong neutral density to allow super slow shutter speeds under bright light conditions. The UV filter is super useful for aerial photography at high altitude and for haze cutting when imaging distant mountain vistas.  The UV fails when imaging nearby subjects.
You can mount any filter – all you need do figure out how to mount them. You can even use duct tape to help you mount them.


Creating Tabs in Google Docs

Question: I know in Google Sheets you can compile multiple spreadsheets by using the tab feature at the bottom. I was wondering if there is any way to do this with Google Docs.
Answer: If you are asking if it's possible to have tabs in Docs same as in Sheets like these:

...unfortunately, that is not possible.

On the other hand, you can setup Outlines (which is not the same as tabs/sheets in Sheets, but it could be handy to fast-jump on specific spots)

Creating Tabs in Google Docs


GIMP - how to fold all layers in list?

Question: I am working a lot with 3rd person PSDs in GIMP. They usually contain a lot of layers and by default they are all unfolded in layer tree window. How could I collapse all layers so I will only see top-level ones? Because I am repeadelly closing 40 layers and there is no "collapse all" options.
Answer: I presume you are talking about layer-groups, and that you want to collapse all groups (and any sub-groups) so that only top-level layers and layer-groups are shown in the Layers Dialog.
Unfortunately, there is no way to collapse-all groups at the moment - the UI does not provide such a function and it cannot be implemented from a script/plug-in either.
You could report this as a bug or enhancement request - see http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-introduction-bugs.html
Answer: As suggested, I filed a bug report on Gnome Bugzilla. Having lots of layers & groups, I had similar issues with the layers dialogue being slow.
I propose 2 solutions:

Have all layer groups be collapsed / folded by default
Have a collapse all and uncollapse all button
Comment: These are workarounds rather than solutions - they hide the actual problem by reducing the number of items shown, but don't attempt to reduce the computational complexity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory) of scrolling. The bug is a good starting point, though - and even if we figure we can't reduce the complexity class, reducing the time (and thus increasing scrolling speed) by a fixed ratio can be useful.

GIMP - how to fold all layers in list?


Thoretically, what makes multi-pitch detection so difficult?

Question: For multi-pitch detection, I mean for example pressing several piano keys at the same time. For signal pitch detection (pressing one key at a time), after FFT, mostly the frequency with the largest magnitude is desired frequency.  However, for multi-pitch detection, let's just say press two piano keys, the two frequencies with the first two largest magnitudes are not the frequencies of keys I pressed.
Answer: First of all:

mostly the frequency with the largest magnitude is desired frequency

This is a very naive and flawed approach, as what you are measuring here is very different from the perceptual notion of pitch. Not to mention that you hit the limited resolution of FFT...
Some of the challenges one has to face in multi-pitch detection:

Octaves are difficult to tell apart. Play two Cs one octave apart, and the harmonics of the highest note reinforces the harmonics of the lowest note, rather than create new peaks in the spectrum, to the point that one could hear one single "C" note with a different timbre. When mixing several notes together, some of their partials can reinforce or cancel each other.
Pitch detection can no longer be seen as a problem of period estimation. The most successful monophonic pitch detection algorithms are time-domain and based on metrics like the average magnitude (or square) difference function, and the underlying assumption is that the signal has a salient periodicity - it is almost similar to itself when translated in time. These methods cannot be applied to polyphonic signals, as the period of a mixture of periodic signals is the LCD of the components' periods. Knowing this LCD does not give away the factors...
The fact that the number of notes is not known in advance increases the size of the search space, and makes it an ill-posed problem. You are no longer ranking hypothesis like "this is a C3" vs "this is a C#3", but instead, "this is a C3 and a G4" vs "this is just a C3" vs "this is a C2 and a C3". For example, take a single piano note. One could describe its spectra as a "single C3 piano note". Or one could describe its spectra as "a C3, a C4, a G4, etc... all played together by an instrument producing purely sinusoidal notes". Distinguishing among these two options requires prior knowledge of the spectral shape of a piano note.
Comment: Here is what I did for monophonic pitch detection. After FFT, there is a loop for pitch foundamentals(20--2000), the harmonics are also considered. A is the foundamental.  Magnitude = Magnitude(A) * Magnitude(2*A) *Magnitude(3*A) * Magnitude(4*A) * Magnitude(5*A), finally I will choose the fondamental with the largest magnitude as the desired pitch. This method is not 100% correct, but I would say 80% of tests are correct.
Comment: For the your third point for multi-pitch detection, I used a very simple algorithm. I still used FFT to do the domain transfer. First I will pick the frequency with largest magnitude(M!). Then I will check the frequency of second largest magnitude(M2), if M2 > 0.3*M1, then M2 will be regarded as one of the multi pitchs. Then check if M3 > 0.3*M1. Just tested a few cases, for example, the corrected pitches are 260, 290, 330, 350 390, the algorithm can detect most but not all the pitches, it unexpectedly detect 130 as pitch.
Answer: Intervals in Western music are usually close to having their pitch frequencies related by low integer ratios.  Therefore, the composite of 2 notes can create an overtone sequence with many more than 2 possible groupings that contain tones that are roughly equally spaced in frequency (a problem for Harmonic Product Spectrum and other related methods.)
Because of equal temperament tuning, the interval notes are not always related by exact low integer ratios... they are only very close.  Close enough for different overtones from different base pitch notes to beat.  Which means any single short FFT frame might be in the null of beat note of two overtones beating.  This further compounds the problem of multiple pitch candidates appearing and disappearing, for the multiple possible overtone sequences.
Instead of your frequency search space being points related by simple sequences of ratios of 2,3,4,5,etc. for a single pitch, the search space will need to contain sequences of all the fractional ratios of all the overtones of all the notes in  all the possible interval chords and intervals.  So many the sequences usually end up all overlapping, given any windowing noise (FFT length limited fattened spectral humps), instead of being distinct peaks in the pitch search space.


Sim Not valid when activating my iPhone

Question: I have a unlocked iPhone 4 or at least that's what I've been told when i bought it. But then I went ahead to unlock it again, when I put a SIM card in, it says no service or at least i hope that's what it's suppose to say. Any hoo I just updated my phone to ios 7.0.3 or whatever and I tried putting in someone else's Verizon and Sprint SIM cards in but it will not get past activation. It says SIM is not valid but when I put the SIM in for activation, but it says no service, which is a good thing. I've been told to try T-Mobile or ATT&T SIM card and reboot it to get past activation. I have just purchased a Straight Talk SIM card and I am hoping to transfer over to them and hoping the SIM card works or any SIM card to get past activation. Any advice or a solution to my promblem?
Comment: Can you please edit your question to clearly say what your problem actually is (the part about T-Mobile/Straight Talk) is probably not part of the problem description)? It would also help if you could add some details about whether it worked correctly before the upgrade to 7.0.3 (and from which version you upgraded) and why you had to unlock it *again*.
Comment: When you say unlock - do you mean slide to unlock the device or that when you restore your iPhone for iTunes it tells you congratulations, you are carrier unlocked?
Answer: Phones are a bit tricky. On one hand, the manufacturer (Apple) should make it clear how to use the device, but since you get a no-service error that part of the equation seems working well enough.
If the device shows no service with several known good SIM, you might need to check with Apple or the carrier that originally locked the device to verify it's unlocked + test with an active SIM from that carrier.
If you can use the phone on wifi, it's activated (in the technical sense - activation is a specific step needed before the phone software starts to operate) and now you can focus on establishing cellular service and troubleshooting that portion of iOS:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3780

Sim Not valid when activating my iPhone


How do I get the result of a command in a variable in windows?

Question: I'm looking to get the result of a command as a variable in a Windows batch script (see how to get the result of a command in bash for the bash scripting equivalent).  A solution that will work in a .bat file is preferred, but other common windows scripting solutions are also welcome.
Comment: John, it's ridiculously hard to find this **very** useful question. Could you please consider adding alternative phrasing like *How to **capture** the **output** of a a **program** into a variable in a Windows batch file?*
Comment: Google displayed this page ranked 3rd.
Comment: @MichaelFreidgeim Fair point, I'd say these questions were an exception though, there's about 4 of them all asked years ago, they have different qualities of answers on each one and none of them are definitive.
Answer: The humble for command has accumulated some interesting capabilities over the years:
D:\> FOR /F "delims=" %i IN ('date /t') DO set today=%i
D:\> echo %today%
Sat 20/09/2008

Note that "delims=" overwrites the default space and tab delimiters so that the output of the date command gets gobbled all at once.
To capture multi-line output, it can still essentially be a one-liner (using the variable lf as the delimiter in the resulting variable):
REM NB:in a batch file, need to use %%i not %i
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
SET lf=-
FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('dir \ /b') DO if ("!out!"=="") (set out=%%i) else (set out=!out!%lf%%%i)
ECHO %out%

To capture a piped expression, use ^|:
FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('svn info . ^| findstr "Root:"') DO set "URL=%%i"

Comment: @Rabarberski:  If you type a `for` command straight on the command line, you use a single `%`.  If you use it in a batch file, you use `%%`.
Comment: I found your answer to work only when I used double percentage signs, i.e. `FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('date /t') DO set today=%%i`
Comment: As with @PabloG's answer, this will only work to get the last line of output from the command, "date /t" in this case.
Comment: @degenerate The command is valid provided that `date` command used comes from Cygwin. I agree I should have mentioned that.
Comment: @tardate: Could you please tell how the script will look like, if command needs to be passed argument with `%`, for example: `for /f "delims=" %%i in ('date +%F_%H-%M-%S') do set now=%%i`
Comment: @dma_k answering 3 years late, but yes you use `%%i`, however that command you typed is not valid due to the date formatting inside the parentheses.
Answer: If you have to capture all the command output you can use a batch like this:
@ECHO OFF
IF NOT "%1"=="" GOTO ADDV
SET VAR=
FOR /F %%I IN ('DIR *.TXT /B /O:D') DO CALL %0 %%I
SET VAR
GOTO END

:ADDV
SET VAR=%VAR%!%1

:END

All output lines are stored in VAR separated with "!".
But if only a single-line console-output is expected, try:
@ECHO off
@SET MY_VAR=
FOR /F %%I IN ('npm prefix') DO @SET "MY_VAR=%%I"

@REM Do something with MY_VAR variable...

@John: is there any practical use for this? I think you should watch PowerShell or any other programming language capable to perform scripting tasks easily (Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby)
Comment: *is there any practical use for this?* Are You kidding? This is used all the time in other shells (all GNU/Linux ones I guess) and it's **very** useful.
Comment: There is a practical use, actually... kinda. I want to use a PowerShell script to find a particular Visual Studio path, but the thing I need out of that path is a batch file that sets a bunch of env vars so I can call editbin... So I need to find the path and get it back out to the calling instance of `cmd` so I can run it there. ...Yes, this is as terrible as sounds. Visual Studio makes me want to cry sometimes. @Ajedi32 I think *you* meant to say that **batch** scripts are a horrible relic of the past. ;)
Comment: @PiotrDobrogost I think what he was trying to say was that bash scripts are a horrible relic of the past (You need to use a *for loop* just to capture the output of a program? Seriously?), and if you ever get to the point where you find yourself needing to use variables, you should use something more modern like PowerShell.
Comment: The single line answer will solve the specific case I have.  I just figured there was a multi-line option (or an easier single line option).  I guess the capabilities of bat files just aren't that great.
The need for it is for bat scripts wrapping Java apps.  Building classpaths mainly.
Comment: Be very careful with that. GWT also tried to use batch files for starting Java with specific classpaths, which failed horrible as soon as you're getting to directories with non-ASCII characters (in that case it was my home :)). They since rewrote that with VBS.
Comment: If the command had been simple (without space), you could have done `set var=%command%`
Answer: To get the current directory, you can use this:
CD > tmpFile
SET /p myvar= < tmpFile
DEL tmpFile
echo test: %myvar%

It's using a temp-file though, so it's not the most pretty, but it certainly works! 'CD' puts the current directory in 'tmpFile', 'SET' loads the content of tmpFile.
Here is a solution for multiple lines with "array's":
@echo off

rem ---------
rem Obtain line numbers from the file
rem ---------

rem This is the file that is being read: You can replace this with %1 for dynamic behaviour or replace it with some command like the first example i gave with the 'CD' command.
set _readfile=test.txt

for /f "usebackq tokens=2 delims=:" %%a in (`find /c /v "" %_readfile%`) do set _max=%%a
set /a _max+=1
set _i=0
set _filename=temp.dat

rem ---------
rem Make the list
rem ---------

:makeList
find /n /v "" %_readfile% >%_filename%

rem ---------
rem Read the list
rem ---------

:readList
if %_i%==%_max% goto printList

rem ---------
rem Read the lines into the array
rem ---------
for /f "usebackq delims=] tokens=2" %%a in (`findstr /r "\[%_i%]" %_filename%`) do set _data%_i%=%%a
set /a _i+=1
goto readList

:printList
del %_filename%
set _i=1
:printMore
if %_i%==%_max% goto finished
set _data%_i%
set /a _i+=1
goto printMore

:finished

But you might want to consider moving to another more powerful shell or create an application for this stuff. It's stretching the possibilities of the batch files quite a bit.
Comment: To get the current directory you can use echo %CD%
Comment: Is there a variation that will work to capture multiple lines from the command?
Answer: you need to use the SET command with parameter /P and direct your output to it.
For example see http://www.ss64.com/nt/set.html. Will work for CMD, not sure about .BAT files
From a comment to this post:

That link has the command "Set /P
  _MyVar=<MyFilename.txt" which says it will set _MyVar to the first line
  from MyFilename.txt. This could be
  used as "myCmd > tmp.txt" with "set
  /P myVar=<tmp.txt". But it will only
  get the first line of the output, not
  all the output
Comment: That link has the command "Set /P _MyVar= tmp.txt" with "set /P myVar=<tmp.txt".  But it will only get the first line of the output, not all the output.
Comment: This answer is for begginners like myself
Answer: I would like to add a remark to the above solutions:
All these syntaxes work perfectly well IF YOUR COMMAND IS FOUND WITHIN THE PATH or IF THE COMMAND IS A cmdpath WITHOUT SPACES OR SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
But if you try to use an executable command located in a folder which path contains special characters then you would need to enclose your command path into double quotes (") and then the FOR /F syntax does not work.
Examples:
$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
    `""F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" Hello '"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"'`
) do echo %f
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

or
$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
      `"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe" "Hello World" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"`
) do echo %f
'F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

or
`$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
     `""F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" "Hello World" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"`
) do echo %f
'"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" "Hello' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

In that case, the only solution I found to use a command and store its result in a variable is to set (temporarily) the default directory to the one of command itself :
pushd "%~d0%~p0"
FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (
    `FOLDERBROWSE "Hello world!" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Layouts (print,display...)"`
) DO (SET MyFolder=%%F)
popd
echo My selected folder: %MyFolder%

The result is then correct:
My selected folder: F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\OS install, recovery, VM\
Press any key to continue . . .

Of course in the above example, I assume that my batch script is located in the same folder as the one of my executable command so that I can use the "%~d0%~p0" syntax. If this is not your case, then you have to find a way to locate your command path and change the default directory to its path.
NB: For those who wonder, the sample command used here (to select a folder) is FOLDERBROWSE.EXE. I found it on the web site f2ko.de (http://f2ko.de/en/cmd.php).
If anyone has a better solution for that kind of commands accessible through a complex path, I will be very glad to hear of it.
Gilles
Comment: You can prefix your command with `CALL`. [FOR /F doesn't work if path has spaces](https://stackoverflow.com/a/6478227/463115)
Comment: @jeb : THANK YOU SO MUCH !
Now my code <`CALL "%SOURCEDIR%\FOLDERBROWSE" ... "quoted parameters"`> works perfectly.
Answer: Example to set in the "V" environment variable the most recent file
FOR /F %I IN ('DIR *.* /O:D /B') DO SET V=%I

in a batch file you have to use double prefix in the loop variable:
FOR /F %%I IN ('DIR *.* /O:D /B') DO SET V=%%I

Comment: I have seen this approach before, but it seems really hacky.  It also has the problem that it only will capture the last line of output from the command in the variable.
Answer: Just use the result from the FOR command. For example (inside a batch file):
for /F "delims=" %%I in ('dir /b /a-d /od FILESA*') do (echo %%I)

You can use the %%I as the value you want. Just like this: %%I.
And in advance the %%I does not have any spaces or CR characters and can be used for comparisons!!
Answer: If you're looking for the solution provided in Using the result of a command as an argument in bash?
then here is the code:
@echo off
if not "%1"=="" goto get_basename_pwd
for /f "delims=X" %%i in ('cd') do call %0 %%i
for /f "delims=X" %%i in ('dir /o:d /b') do echo %%i>>%filename%.txt
goto end

:get_basename_pwd
set filename=%~n1

:end

This will call itself with the result of the CD command, same as pwd.
String extraction on parameters will return the filename/folder.
Get the contents of this folder and append to the filename.txt

[Credits]: Thanks to all the other answers and some digging on the Windows XP commands page.
Answer: @echo off

ver | find "6.1." > nul
if %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 (
echo Win7
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('DIR "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\*Outlook.EXE" /B /P /S') do call set findoutlook=%%a
%findoutlook%
)

ver | find "5.1." > nul
if %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 (
echo WinXP
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('DIR "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\*Outlook.EXE" /B /P /S') do call set findoutlook=%%a
%findoutlook%
)
echo Outlook dir:  %findoutlook%
"%findoutlook%"

Comment: Thanks for posting an answer! While a code snippet could answer the question it's still great to add some addition information around, like explain, etc ..
Answer: You can capture all output in one variable, but the lines will be separated by a character of your choice (# in the example below) instead of an actual CR-LF.
@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b') do (
    if "!DIR!"=="" (set DIR=%%i) else (set DIR=!DIR!#%%i)
)
echo directory contains:
echo %DIR%

Second version, if you need to print the contents out line-by-line.  This takes advanted of the fact that there won't be duplicate lines of output from "dir /b", so it may not work in the general case.
@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set count=0
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b') do (
    if "!DIR!"=="" (set DIR=%%i) else (set DIR=!DIR!#%%i)
    set /a count = !count! + 1
)

echo directory contains:
echo %DIR%

for /l %%c in (1,1,%count%) do (
    for /f "delims=#" %%i in ("!DIR!") do (
        echo %%i
        set DIR=!DIR:%%i=!
    )
)

Answer: @echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
FOR /F "tokens=1 delims= " %%i IN ('echo hola') DO (
    set TXT=%%i
)
echo 'TXT: %TXT%'

the result is 'TXT: hola'
Answer: You should use the for command, here is an example:
@echo off
rem Commands go here
exit /b
:output
for /f "tokens=* useback" %%a in (`%~1`) do set "output=%%a"

and you can use call :output "Command goes here" then the output will be in the %output% variable.
Note: If you have a command output that is multiline, this tool will set the output to the last line of your multiline command.
Answer: Please refer to this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490982.aspx which explains what you can do with command output.
Comment: Using his answer i have came up with this:
`git pull>0
set /P RESULTVAR=<0`
edit: I guess, i don't know how to use line breaks here... each command is on it's own line.
Comment: That article just covers redirection and related topics.  It doesn't answer the question of how to take the output of one command and get it into a variable.


What is the difference between BBSW and AUD LIBOR?

Question: I understand that BBSW is the reference rate for financial instruments while AUD LIBOR is the interbank rate benchmark.
However, since AUD LIBOR has been discontinued due to the rigging scandal, can BBSW be considered as an interbank benchmark rate in Australia?
Answer: AUD LIBOR is no longer quoted. See list of fixes: https://www.theice.com/iba/libor
AUD BBSW is quoted by prime AU banks and is based on the price of a discounted security while what was formerly the BBA AUD LIBOR was based on quotes by a different (but overlapping) set of rate contributors on a theoretical loan/depo.


May one paddle a canoe (or ride in one) around in a lake or pond on Yom Tov?

Question: Suppose one lives next to a lake or a pond and has a canoe (or a kayak or other non-motorized, sail-less rowboat) that is kept docked at the water.  May one use it on Yom Tov?  Is this melacha?  Does it count as "traveling" if one has no destination and is simply paddling around and returning to his point of departure?  What if one is not paddling but simply riding along?  Would the answers be different on Shabbat?
Comment: Also see the interesting summary of a responsum of the Chavos Yair on MiYodeah [here](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/26954/9947).
Answer: The Shulchan Aruch 339:7 implies that one is only allowed to enter a docked boat if he is not moving it around:

סְפִינָה, אִם הִיא יוֹשֶׁבֶת בְּקַרְקַע הַיָּם וְאֵינָהּ שָׁטָה כְּלָל, מֻתָּר לִכָּנֵס בָּהּ; וְאִם הִיא קְשׁוּרָה כְּמִנְהַג הַסְפִינוֹת הָעוֹמְדוֹת בַּנָּמֵל, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהִיא שָׁטָה עַל פְּנֵי הַמַּיִם, מֻתָּר לִכָּנֵס בָּהּ.
One is allowed to enter a boat if it is resting on the ground (bed) of the sea and is not floating at all. If it is tied as is customary with boats docked in a port, even though it is floating on the water, one is allowed to enter it.

As far as riding along even when e.g. a non-Jew will be sailing the boat, this is a potential problem even when one boarded before Shabbat if one would still be on board on Shabbat (see Shabbat 19a cited here).
(These laws are true for both Shabbat and Yom Tov. As noted by @DoubleAA, there may also be an issue of techum shabbat, if one were to travel more than ~3100 feet, since a lake generally doesn't have residences on the water. Also, with regard to Yom Kippur, there is an additional issue of getting wet in a way which might be considered taanug.)
(See also here and here.)
Comment: The verb "שט" AFAIK implies movement and does not include floating in place. Cf. "_shatu haam v'lak'tu_".
Comment: @msh210 That's a fair point. However, my understanding is that שט means to float (as in modern Hebrew) which may or may not also include movement (as in English). Contextually, the whole point of the Shulchan Aruch's law is to suggest that it is the movement that is the problem and floating is only allowed when the movement is not significant, as is the case when the boats are docked כְּמִנְהַג הַסְפִינוֹת הָעוֹמְדוֹת בַּנָּמֵל. The OP was asking about taking a boat out on a lake which clearly is not allowed based on the Mechaber's wording.
Comment: @msh210 Further, the Mechaber is discussing *entering*, certainly not "paddling".
Answer: One may do so, provided it's tied to something on the shore. [Obviously, he won't get very far.] Shulchan Aruch 339:7. However, see the commentaries there for details and exceptions. And, if this is a practical question for you, ask your rabbi rather than relying on what you read on this site.
Note that there's no explicit prohibition on "traveling", though various methods of travel are prohibited for various reasons. Boarding and traveling by a boat is (with an exception outlined above) among them.
Comment: And be careful not to violate techum.
Comment: The Shulchan Aruch there is talking about entering it without causing it to move around. The implication is that "paddling around" would be completely forbidden.
Comment: @Loewian, I don't see that there. See my comment on your answer.


Serial Port Counting Meter clicks away when XP Embedded Starts Up

Question: We have a counting meter hooked up to the serial port of a PC running Windows XP Embedded and everytime Windows starts, the meter starts clicking away about 90 times. We have tried using /fastdetect in boot.ini and it didn't work, even though it did work on XP Pro. We tried adding SkipEnumeration to the Device Parameter in the registry and it didn't work. When Plug&Play is disabled it won't click, but this isn't an option for us. Any other ideas? Thanks.
Comment: figured it out... for anyone interested having this problem... I edited the Plug&Play registry and added a DependOnService multi-string with "Spooler" service as the data... this makes Plug&Play start later and allows enough time so that the meter isn't clicking like crazy
Answer: for anyone interested having this problem... I edited the Plug&Play registry and added a DependOnService multi-string with "Spooler" service as the data... this makes Plug&Play start later and allows enough time so that the meter isn't clicking crazy


red-haired crew, no devil fruit, still really strong?

Question: I've heard on many online forums that the red haired crew is the only crew with all Human Pirates. What exactly is that makes the crew so exceptionally strong and the captain -Shanks- being one of the four emperors.
They've been portrayed really strong, in the Marine ford arc, several admirals also Blackbeard and his crew were afraid of fighting them, Admiral Kizaru -who also seems really strong- was shut down just by a look from Ben Beckman.
What exactly is their extent of powers being normal human being and have they shown it in any episodes?
Answer: Right now we know very little about their abilities.  We do not know whether they have any Devil Fruits. Even Shanks, who we know did not have a devil fruit when he lost his arm, could have eaten one more recently.
That being said many strong characters don't have devil fruits.  Silvers stopped Kizaru and was shown swimming later. The majority of the Strawhats still do not have Devil Fruits including 2 of the 3 strongest fighters.
Haki (and possibly Sea Stone) seems to allow non-Devil Fruit users to fight evenly with Devil Fruit users. Shanks has been shown to have incredibly powerful Conqueror's Haki to the extent that he damaged Whitebeard's ship with no visible effort or action.  It is likely several others (especially those who halted admirals) have Haki too.
We know that Ben Beckman is the smartest person to come from the East Blue which puts him above both Nami and Captain Kuro (man of 1000 plans). Yassop is a powerful sniper like Ussop (who is more skilled that a platoon of WG soldiers despite appearances).  Rockstar had a bounty of 94,000,000 Beri.
We literally only know the names of 5 of Shank's crew (the above and Lucky Roo) though we have seen several more.  There is no telling what insane abilities each member of the crew might have when we know so little.  The few we do know were able to at least intimidate marine admirals.  There is more out of universe (fan theory really) evidence that one day Sanji will confront Kizaru and Zoro will confront Fujitora. I don't think anyone would doubt that they are powerful crew mates and will likely never rely on devil fruit powers.
Comment: Admittedly, I don't address the "human" part of the question.  Honestly I didn't see that written there before I finished my answer.
Comment: How do you know so much about the Red Haired crew? I have read the manga and seen the anime (without fillers) and I have never seen a reference to Beckman's intelligence, or heard/read the names of Rockstar or Lucky Roo :-/ did I miss anything somewhere or does this information come from another source?
Comment: @Gravinco Ben Beckman's intellegence is from an SBS. Oda says Nami is the third most intellegent from the east blue below Ben and then Kuro. Kuro is my favorite villain so that is easy to remember. Lucky Roo is the fat guy from romance dawn who shot the bandit while eating a joint of meat. I remember his name thanks to old fan theories about him being the fastest man alive.  I didn't remember Rockstar; I had to read the wiki on him. Apparently he was the one who took a message from Shanks to Whitebeard which the latter tore up (I think i barely remember that).
Comment: So you remember the names of Lucky Roo and Rockstar from sources other than manga/anime, they weren't mentioned there? (Just double-checking because otherwise I'd have to read/watch again xD )
Comment: @Gravinco The names are canon.  I was just answering why I remembered them.  Lucky Roo's name was revealled in Vol. 5 SBS.  Ironically, it reads as follows "And the meat-eating fat guy's name is Lucky Roo. There's really no need to remember something like that, but since I got asked enough, I might as well clear it up."  Rockstar is formally introduced in Vol. 25 chapter 243 (again according to the wiki which agregates this stuff that isn't worth remembering).


What is the total number of sets that LEGO has released?

Question: I am wondering how many LEGO sets that LEGO has released in total in their 85+ years of business. To clarify I am only looking for sets that use plastic blocks like the ones we have today, not the very early sets. This would probably be sets from after 1950 as they started producing the interlocking plastic brick in 1949.
Comment: A follow up question could be: Who has collected and BUILT the largest number of different Lego brand sets?
Comment: @Dan1138, you should probably start a new question rather than commenting
Answer: It might be impossible to give the precise number simply because some older sets are yet to be found and new ones are being added with a slight delay.
These three are major websites having the most details about sets:

Bricklink catalog has 15824 sets in its catalog.
Brickset has 16378 sets.
Rebrickable has 15432 sets.

As you can see numbers are similar, yet differ slightly. This is due the fact that each site has its own set of rules. For example, it may treat some sets as accessories, thus including/excluding them.
Note. All numbers are up-to-date as of the time of this answer.
Comment: Keep in mind that the Bricklink catalog mostly lists sets that real people really have. Some of them may be sets the Lego never "shipped" and there may be other sets that Lego shipped but no living person has.
Comment: @Dan1138 Isn't that the whole point of having a catalog with ALL sets, even if the set is extremely hard to get hold of?
Comment: That will have to do as I should have specified in my question that I was only looking for an approximate value.
Answer: There is over 2000 Lego sets. As a former employee that has been working in the design department since 2006.
Comment: Hi Michael and welcome to Bricks.SE! Your answer sets a lower boundary which is way below the ballpark established by Alex's answer, which sources three different sites. I feel this answer could be improved by either explaining the difference or expanding on the sources this answer is derived from.
Comment: Could you specify what makes these sets fall into the "set" category? Are they only official boxed sets?
Answer: I saw in a Google search that an online database had about 20,000 Lego sets.
Comment: Hi Marble and welcome to Bricks.SE! Which database was this?


How would dolphins look if they evolved to human levels?

Question: If dolphins came out of the water again and evolved into something approaching human intelligence, how would that look, taking into account their physical characteristics and what happened evolutionarily when they moved into the water? They would have to be able to walk again, so how would this work?
Comment: "On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars, and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons." (HGTTG)
Comment: @XandarTheZenon On the contrary, the fact that you *don't* see dolphins in the hospital is the ultimate proof.
Comment: @Thucydides The day I see a dolphin hospital is the day that I admit dolphins are as smart as humans.
Answer: Well, some might argue that dolphins already have something approaching human intelligence...
We can take it that the three necessary factors for a species to develop technology are:

Intelligence - to conceptualise what technology they want to develop
Language - to communicate complex instructions and ideas with other individuals
Manipulation - to be able to use tools and materials to realise their ideas

You can think of these as a virtuous cycle, if you have all three they reinforce each other and eventually you end up with a technological society like we have today. Dolphins arguably have the first two, but they lack the ability to manipulate their environment: they can think about building tools, they might even be able to discuss building tools, but they'll never be able to actually build them because instead of arms and hands they have useless fingerless flippers.
So back to your question, we can assume that dolphins, being perfectly adapted for marine life, are probably not going to leave the sea willingly. So let's assume a push factor: something is gradually making the oceans uninhabitable and the only course for survival to adapt to the land.
There are several significant obstacles for dolphins surviving on land. Beached dolphins tend to die relatively quickly of either thirst, overheating, or asphyxiation. The first is due to the fact dolphins don't actually drink; in the sea they gain all their hydration from the fish they eat, a dolphin that doesn't eat will die of thirst long before it dies of hunger.
Overheating and asphyxiation occur because of the sheer weight of the dolphin's body fat, which, while essential for maintaining warmth, buoyancy and internal pressure while the dolphin is in the water, will quickly kill a dolphin outside of the water by trapping in too much body heat or just weighing down the pumping of its lungs.
So, to survive out of the water, a dolphin is going to have to become a lot more like a seal. It will have to stick to very cold environments, it will have to reduce its internal body fat content, and get used to eating less frequently. While on land it will probably move like a seal does: by somewhat gracelessly bouncing around on its belly.
Walking is probably out of the picture. As you can see from the below, a dolphin's hind legs are completely atrophied, and only a tiny vestigial pelvis remains. Once evolution atrophies a feature to this extent, it is very unlikely for it to return.

The unhappy conclusion though is that intelligence is expensive. It requires a lot of resources diverted from elsewhere and a constant supply of high protein food to fuel the large brain. In lean times, and when facing having to adapt to a new environment, the massive brain is probably going to be the first thing the dolphin will sacrifice.
If the same thing that makes the sea inhospitable for the dolphins also makes it inhospitable for the fish however, then the dolphin will also have to eventually adapt away from the semi-aquatic seal lifestyle too, into something completely terrestrial. Below is my idea for what the 'final product' would be:

This is an animal with a much smaller brain than present-day dolphins, and a greatly truncated body size (probably about waist-high against a human). It has an ill-adapted sense of hearing and smell, so it hunts mainly by sight, and mainly for prey like small rodents. The hind-legs are still gone, so its flippers have adapted back into legs, allowing it to walk somewhat like a flightless bird. Dolphins are born with some vestigial fur, so I've been kind and allowed it to regain a full pelt.
Comment: Male dolphins have prehensile reproductive organs which could be used to manipulate with minimal evolutionary modification.
Comment: So in other words for the dolphins to become something like seals
Comment: Bottlenose dolphins use tools. Pretty limited ones, but tools nevertheless. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/3004/1/tool_use_in_bottlenose_dolphins.pdf
Comment: @Thucydides seals that walk around like ostriches.
Answer: The big question is this: Will it become human like, then come out of the water, or will it come out of the water, then become more human like?
For a dolphin to come out of the water, it will have to sacrifice a lot of what already makes it human like as Tom O'Daighre's answer already attests to.  Coming straight onto land is only an evolutionary pressure for the dolphin as is, if the sea has become very inhospitable at which point a lot of a dolphin's intelligence will likely be sacrificed first.
Instead consider that dolphins first become better tool users.  While they already have basic tool use skills like using sponges to sift sand for prey without hurting thier noses, some possible tools are too hard to want to manipulate with thier teeth.  It could start as a simple as discovering they can use their flippers to stack rocks making houses where they can safely hide from sharks or other predators.  Granted, dolphins are already normally apex or near apex predators in most areas that they live, but a population boom in killer whales, or one of the larger shark species could force them onto the defense.  Or perhaps they are making traps, or take up farming, or are creating new micro ecosystems for themselves the way you see them form around oil rigs and other man-made structures.  It, does not matter why they are stacking rocks as long as they convey some advantage. As the generations go on, the dolphins who have longer more dexterous flippers can make better structures more quickly improving their odds of survival.  Eventually some lucky dolphin will be born with stubby little fingers, this is a huge advantage because now they can hold smaller rocks or even sticks adding all sorts of construction options for these builder dolphins, like being able to make a door to keep out predator who could otherwise follow them into their homes or something to snap shut trapping prey.
Now this is where going back to land becomes a thing.  Fresh water has a lot more rocks and sticks to work with; so, dolphins who go inland into gulfs, rivers, and lakes will have a lot more resources to work with.  Once their fins become more arms like they can even start figuring out spears and tool crafting which will make them the undisputed apex predator of the world's bodies of fresh water.  Living in warmer fresh water, they now don't need all that blubber; so, those who are lighter can start to drag themselves up on to land to take advantage of all the edible plants and wildlife that likes to live near the water.  So now you have something that is more or less a freshwater mermaid.
Now, their tails will continue to prefer water for a while, but land now offers something they will never get in the water, and that is fire.  Being able to cook will open up a whole plethora of new food sources for them and help them fight food born illnesses; so, this will lead to features that prefer the ground to their rivers.  Re-evolving legs is a long path to go for the dolphin; so, they may more likely go with slithering like a snake.
In the end your dolphins would end up looking more or less like this:
Comment: That is true of many shark species, but bull sharks, tiger sharks, dusky sharks and great white sharks are all known to prey on dolphins.
Comment: Ehm ehm all good and I would upvote but I reached the daily limit...but just wanted to correct the fact that sharks are afraid of dolphins...because dolphins kill sharks for fun.
Comment: Those species of shark are known to prey on dolphins, but dolphins kill them too.  Rather than building a shelter (particularly since dolphins need to surface to breathe periodically), it seems more likely that they'd build _weapons_.
Comment: @jdunlop What is a shelter for a human does necessarily translate to a shelter for dolphins.  For dolphins this could be a walled in area that extends to the surface built in shallow water that gives them somewhere safe to rest.  There are also a plethora of other things they may construct like traps or water breaks to keep thier kelp farms safe... I do agree that weapons could easily come first though, but I'm not sure if that would create enough environmental pressure to make hands selectively fit over having better flippers.
Answer: Well, as you already know, dolphins have already lived on land before. They're descendants of terrestrial mammals.
Going back? They've the lungs and the unique construction of their flippers (former forelimbs) to work with. That's a plus. Their lungs presumably keep them in shallower waters, so they're already that close to land. Not to mention the fact that they already breathe air. Their flippers seem to have the complexity that our ancient aquatic ancestors had before making the jump, so that's another plus. And they probably have some vestigial remains of former hind limbs. All in all I'd say that's a fair start.
I think the simplest way to approach this question is as if you were reversing the process of their evolution a bit. By means of absurd chance and natural selection they somehow become tetrapods again. They take up life on land and ever so slowly continue to adapt.
Eventually they'd find themselves in a survival-based scenario that promotes the evolution of walking on their hind limbs. Probably gathering food faster than the competition or something along those lines.
As for what exactly that would leave them looking like... I don't want to sound dismissive, but a lot of that will be up to you.
It's just the nature of evolution. It's all circumstance. Even with my limited knowledge of biology, I think it's fair to say that it's impossible for anyone to be sure.
But that can be a good thing. Plenty of room to be creative. Play around with the jaw, the dorsal fin, the positioning of their eyes. Do they continue to give live birth? Does their skin remain rubbery, soften, or become something we've never seen before? Maybe emphasize the characteristics they have now.
I'd look for some artists' depictions of dolphins' ancestors to start.
Hope this helps.
Answer: Given the need to walk again, I imagine that they would have to go through a stage akin to that of mudskippers, though with possibly less overall change required to resituate themselves for living on land again.
Beyond that, the rest would depend too strongly upon random variables and chaos theory for me to hazard any guesses.
Answer: My answer will incorporate some non-dolphin get them out of the toxicity of the changing water. Since the water is likely becoming toxic due to humans, I will allow a group of humans to help out some dolphins by creating a "landed dolphin refuge". Since dolphins are intelligent, humans chose to help them out in hopes of them one day being evolved enough to function in modern society. They would likely start coming out of water near the poles as Tom O'Daighre suggested in his answer because their fat layers would insulate them heavily, so the first dolphin refuge will be somewhere in Antarctica.
since dolphins can't really move on land the humans will have to help them out here. My first thought is that they lay on a skateboard roll around using their fins to push them. Of course a human manufacturer will have to train them at first and then provide the skateboards.
I'm not sure what language capabilities dolphins have, but I will assume they currently have a vocabulary much less than humans, and also much lesser sentence structure. Quickly their speech will become somewhat similar to humans (likely still as patterns of clicks and whistles); language is learned by humans, so I think this will evolve as quickly as dolphins can invent new words and structures. There will likely also be a human effort to learn dolphin language, and communicate with them, further boosting their linguistic abilities. Within 3 or 4 generations I would expect them to communicate on a level similar to humans. their language transmission and recieving capability over air will likely also improve.
Humans could introduce more advanced evolutionary tactics such as selective breeding or eugenics, to develop better on land characteristics. I will also prohibit direct gene manipulation for ethical and possibly technological reasons.
over 25 or 30 generations of dolphin-imposed selective breeding, their fins would begin to lengthen into arms, allowing them to scoot better on land while still swimming, and catch things with their arms, likely an early development will be throwing/kicking dirt (or snow, as it is Antarctica) at prey. In a few more generations they may also begin to re-develop fingers to use tools like spears or axes to hunt or fell trees, dig holes and develop primitive structures.
Likely they will be able to hunt on land but decide to continue hunting/fishing underwater.
With human level communications skills, I'd be surprised if they did not catch the whole capitalism thing. Drilling companies could employ them to inspect underwater equipment, with time they could possibly repair or perform preventative maintenance underwater. The navy may employ them in submarine detection, and possibly covert insertions. they could also be employed as underwater tour guides, or underwater archaeological specialists (or marine biologists, etc). As amphibious beings dolphins could hold many positions we have not thought of yet.


Dryer vent pipes touching copper hot water pipe

Question: I am installing a long clothes dryer vent in the crawl space under my house to replace the old one.  I am using a combination of both flexible metal pipes and rigid stove pipes to try to reduce the friction as much as possible. Unfortunately the length of the pipe is 20 feet and there is really no alternative.  In several spots the pipes almost come in contact with the copper hot water pipe for the house--it is a very tight area and I am doing my best to avoid touching the pipe.  Is is a problem if both the flexible and rigid pipes come into contact with the copper hot water pipe in just a couple of small places?
Answer: This is not likely to be a major problem, but I can think of two ways it might cause trouble. One is noise, which can occur when the pipe moves due to thermal expansion or rapid water shutoff. Another is galvanic corrosion, which can occur when non-copper metals contact copper water pipes.
Either of these issues can be easily addressed by placing a section of foam pipe insulation around the copper pipe in a way that prevents contact with the duct.
Comment: Hello Shimon:  Thank you for the great answer.  I will buy some foam pipe insulation and put it around the pipe as you suggested.  I think that will solve the problem.  Enjoy the rest of the day/night.
Comment: @mike, the plumbing should be grounded, as should the dryer's housing. So contact between them shouldn't be problematic.


How shall we treat Magmi related questions?

Question: Off-topic or not? With some arguments please.
Comment: Good question, I have not dealt with it from a development point of view before so I was treating it like another 3rd party module. Is it different in some way?
Comment: Technically it is a 3rd party tool. Same as modman or composer. So while being independent it has quite tight connection with Magento.
Comment: Is there good support offered somewhere for it?
Comment: No, at least is was not.
Answer: Here is my approach on questions related to third party modules, not just Magmi. Let me know if it's right or not.
I don't vote to close a question related to third party modules right away. There is a chance that someone else has used that extension and fixed the problem in the question.
So I let the question live for some time.
If the question does not get any answer it is usually bumped up by Community. When I see it bumped up I vote to close.
I think we should treat Magmi questions the same.
Comment: Agree also but only regarding free modules.
Comment: @Tim. I forgot to mention that. For paid modules I vote to close them right away, notifying the OP to contact the developer.
Comment: @Marius, sorry for being unclear. "how should modules related questions be handled" question can be solved by answering the question "why people post them here?" So, for example, 1) if we add a hint (as current hints) before posting answer to NOT ask questions about paid modules because it's advertizing, we can just close such questions.  2) At the other hand, if people do not get proper support from the extension developers and really need help for paid module customization/fix we can allow both questions and answers IMHO.
Comment: That is a very nice approach
Comment: I think this is a very legitimate approach.
Comment: @Marius, Why people ask questions about paid modules here and not at the developer's site?
Comment: @Amasty. What do you mean? This question is about how should modules related questions be handled.
Answer: Should Close

Not core module or custom module made by user asking the question,
I don't know anything about it so I cannot get the point ;)

Should Keep Open

If they add something to the website,
If there are lots of people asking questions then there is a need for these questions,
If there are people on the site/we can get on the site that can provide answers, there is no point having questions open for a while with no hope of an answer, it is not good for the site in terms of users respect for the site or plain and simply the stats :)
Comment: Is there a way we could flag those questions as "off-topic because... 3rd party module related question" ? Because the only options that are given by "off-topic" are not relevant to the situation
Comment: @JulienLachal you can add a custom message that you can use. I think we did get an extra close option before so maybe it would be a good idea to get another one.
Comment: yes but, it would involve less reading for the mods if there was a special option for that specific kind of "off-topic" questions. I don't know if we can ask for this in here.


How can I tell if I have the bootcamp windows drivers installed

Question: What things should I look for in Windows to determine whether I have the bootcamp drivers installed? Are there some files or registry settings I can check for?
Comment: My concern has to do with installing Windows on older model Mac computers. Sometimes Windows will be installed to incorrectly use a EFI boot method, instead of the legacy BIOS boot method. In these cases, some  hardware may not work correctly even after installing the Boot Camp drivers. I only mention this in case you fall into this category.
Answer: The 'Boot Camp drivers' are two main things: Boot Camp Control Panel (for adjusting Mac-relevant Boot Camp settings) and drivers for hardware components. This is why Boot Camp refers to the 'drivers' as 'support files' because there's a little more than just drivers for Windows.
Windows 10 can automatically install a few of these hardware drivers, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi without the need to run their installers provided by Boot Camp (occasionally even newer versions are available outside of the Boot Camp drivers). Whilst these drivers are installed as part of the Boot Camp support files, identifying whether they are part of the Boot Camp drivers is an effort in futility.
The Boot Camp control panel can be found in the notification area if running, or in the Start Menu or Program Files folder. You can see if the software is installed in Programs and Features in Windows.
Without knowing why it's useful for you to know whether Boot Camp is installed, it's not really possible to say where to look, as there are too many independent components which make up the Boot Camp Windows support software.
Answer: There are several ways

Look for the Boot Camp icon in the system tray. It's a gray diamond and when you hover your mouse over it it says Boot Camp
Open Control Panel, there should be a Boot Camp icon
Open device manager, there should be several devices listed that show up as "Apple [name of device]"

Also note that if you have one or more unknown devices (they'll have little yellow triangles on them in Device Manager) it could be that one or more Apple drivers are not installed, and/or damaged and need to be reinstalled. Run Apple Software Update from the start menu and it should find updated Boot Camp drivers.
Answer: The command below will list of 3rd party drivers in the Windows drivers store.
dism  /online  /get-drivers  /format:table

Amongst these drivers are the Apple's Windows Support Software drivers. It is possible that all the drivers listed are from the Windows Support Software.
If you want all the drivers, including those which came with Windows, then use this command.
dism  /online  /get-drivers  /format:table  /all

Note: Just because a driver is in the store, does not mean Windows is using the driver.

You can determine exactly which drivers are part of the Windows Support Software by comparing the following lists which can be made during the installation of Windows.

Listing third party drivers in the Windows image.
Listing third party drivers from $WinPEDriver$ folder as they are added to the store.
Listing the third party drivers before running the setup application in the BootCamp folder.
Listing the third party drivers after running the setup application in the BootCamp folder.

Your Mac probably should not be connected to the internet while making these lists.


Adverbial Clauses

Question: Thinking about sentence structure in Japanese. Given that the simplest sentence in Japanese is a stand-alone verb, would it be valid to say that the rest of the sentence is an adverbial clause, and that the particles simply define how the rest of the sentence modifies the verb?
Answer: Well, depends on what you mean by "adverbial clause". If you try to interpret that term extremely formally in a linguistic sense, no, it's not.
But, I think you're generally on to something:
Predicates (which can be verbs, i-adjectives, or nouns/na-adjectives + the copula), take:

arguments (parts of the clause that are necessary to understand the predicate), e.g.,

ジョンが行{い}く。
  "John will go."

adjuncts (parts of the clause that aren't necessary to understand the predicate), e.g.,

早{はや}く行{い}く。
  "_ will go quickly."

Both types of things can fundamentally be understood as "modifying" the predicate, which I think is what you were trying to get across with the usage of the word "adverb".

However, there are other types of modifications possible which don't really fit into that box. For example, relative clauses such as

[昨日{きのう}行{い}った]店{みせ}
  "the store [I went to yesterday]"

are not modifying a predicate (since there is no predicate), they're modifying a noun phrase (in this case 店/"store").
There are also many other constructions, for example conditionals,

学校{がっこう}に行{い}けば、友達{ともだち}と会{あ}える。
  "If I go to school, I can see my friends."

where it's much more of a stretch to understand them as directly modifying the predicate (会える).
Perhaps you should consider taking a linguistics course if this sort of thing interests you? :-)
Comment: Never gave much thought to linguistics growing up. My daughter, on the other hand is absolutely engrossed. Its funny what interests you pick up from your kids.

Adverbial Clauses


conversion to wygwam field is hanging in ExpressionEngine 1.7

Question: I'm prepping a large EE1.7 site (many, many entries) currently using MD Markitup fields with Textile by converting the content fields to Wygwam so when I upgrade the site to EE2 they're all set. I'm trying to switch the fields one at a time to Wygwam 2.7 and converting the textile content. When I make the change on the edit field page and click "update" the page is hanging for a long time and then goes blank. When I go back to check the field settings the field is still using the previous setting. Is there another way to convert the content?
Answer: I do not have experience converting the MD fields to WYGWAM-friendly fields but here are a couple of ways to troubleshoot this:
The first way involves upgrading to EE 2 by changing all of those MD fields to plain old textarea's (preferably with some SQL) then proceeding with the EE 2 upgrade. This lets you use the latest version of WYGWAM in EE2. Once the site upgraded you can use some SQL to update all of those old textarea's to WYGWAM and go from there.
Secondly, If you would prefer to do this in EE 1 first, it sounds like you are running into a PHP memory issue if you are getting a blank screen. Try upping PHP's memory allotment. A simple adjustment to the .htaccess:
<code>php_value memory_limit 128M
</code>
Lastly, if you're interested in some more EE 1 => EE 2 upgrade tips, you can see this answer as well