Will Buying "SIM-Free" iPhone from Apple Work on Verizon

Question: I currently have verizon and I'm looking to upgrade my phone.  If I buy the phone from this page http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone5s and choose the "SIM-Free" option (below), will that work for me? or do I have to click the verizon button and put my account info in?  Also, I currently have an android phone, that requires a verizon sim card.  Can I just put my old simcard into the new iPhone when it arrives? Thanks in advance.
Answer: There are two different iPhone 5s models sold in the US -- the CDMA model for Verizon or Sprint (which also supports GSM connectivity for international use) and the GSM model. The unlocked phone is the GSM model, so it won't support CDMA and won't talk to Verizon's network (except perhaps for data (not voice) on 4G/LTE, where Verizon uses GSM like the rest of the world). So you can buy an unlocked phone and put a Verizon SIM in it, but it will at best only work with Verizon for data, and only in areas where they have 4G coverage.
Just look at the bottom of the page you link to in your question, where it says:

If you buy a SIM-free iPhone, you will need to purchase a
  GSM-compatible nano-SIM card separately. In the United States, you can
  purchase such a SIM from AT&T or T-Mobile.
Comment: Apple's specs page which confirms that there are two versions of the 5S, CDMA and GSM: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp685?locale=en_US
Answer: This is an old question, but I've seen similar questions about the iPhone 6, 6s and SE now, which are all offered "SIM-free". You can buy a SIM-free and it will work on Verizon or AT&T, and possibly on Sprint (depends on phone and model). The days of CDMA (Verizon and Sprint) vs GSM (AT&T and most others) are almost gone. There are still some 3G and older phones being used. CDMA with Verizon is considered a "legacy" system to support those old phones and it will likely still be in place for a while. The last iPhone which had different CDMA and GSM versions was the iPhone 4. Starting with the 4S the phones were the same with both CDMA and GSM, but Verizon locked the GSM in theirs for only overseas use outside the USA (it's possible to get this unlocked). Starting with the iPhone 5, they're the same and can be switched at will, provided it's not locked to a contract. You can buy an unlocked SIM-free iPhone 5 or newer and all you need is a SIM card for your carrier (a nano SIM card; the iPhone 4S uses a larger micro SIM card). Should be noted there are different models for different regions of the world because some different bands are used in different regions. Be certain you get a USA model if you're in the USA and buy a used phone. I verified that the same exact model of my iPhone 5S was sold and used for AT&T and Verizon in the USA; the only difference is the SIM card. Same applies to the iPhone 6, 6S and SE. You can buy a SIM-free and either use the SIM card in your old phone (provided it's a nano size SIM and not a micro or mini size), or you get another SIM from your carrier for it. You're still responsible for any contractual obligations that remain on the old phone which may present some hurdles such as having to pay an early contract termination fee, or require paying off the phone completely. With Verizon, you can switch phones on a particular line at will, provided all the contractual obligations with the existing one have been satisfied (e.g. if you had a 2-year contract on it, you've finished the 2 years). You do not have to use the "upgrade" path in the on-line Apple store for which Verizon now charges a $20 upgrade fee (I don't know what AT&T, Sprint or others charge). Note: the SIM-free iPhone SE will work on AT&T or VZW, or a host of other networks in the USA, except Sprint which requires a different model of the iPhone SE.
Comment: This answer directly contradicts the accepted answer regarding the 5S, leaving me confused. Do you have a source for this info?
Answer: I'd just call a Version representative on the phone, go to a Verizon store, or contact Apple in either of those ways if you want a definitive answer.
That being said, I'd imagine that that SIM-free iPhone would work with Verizon or the other three carriers due to you not having to specify which one you wish to you the iPhone on. I couldn't be sure, though.
Also, as long as your SIM in your old phone is a nano-SIM card, then it will fit your new iPhone perfectly. That's all you should have to do to activate your iPhone, too, is just put that SIM card in it.
P.S. If you intend on keeping your iPhone for a couple years, you'd be better off either buying a new iPhone 6S or a used iPhone 5S or iPhone 6, not a new iPhone 5S. While a 5S is certainly fine today, in a couple of years it will feel kind of dated (like using an iPhone 4S, today), this is especially bad since it costs at least $550, depending on what model you get. The same configuration iPhone 6S is $200 more, but it'd be worth it, and you'd really appreciate buying a newer model in a couple of years. If you'd don't want to spend any more than what a new 5S costs, though, you could just buy a used iPhone 5S for around $300 on eBay, and a couple hundred or so more for a used iPhone 6. I'd take a used iPhone 6 over a new iPhone 5S any day, but maybe that's just me.
Comment: Why the downvote?


MacBook Air 7,2 suspend does not work

Question: I've installed Elementary OS 5.1 on my MacBook Air 7,2.
The problem is that the "Suspend" function does not work whether selected from the menu or by closing the lid. In both cases, the computer does not go into suspend.
When the lid is closed, the Apple sign remains lit and the computer beeps every now and then, after reopening then login is shown.
When selected via Menu the the screen becomes black but immediately shows the login again.
Answer: You can set laptop lid action in:
/etc/systemd/logind.conf
Try to set
#HandleLidSwitch=suspend
to
HandleLidSwitch=suspend
then:
systemctl restart systemd-logind
Also, do you have swap:
cat /proc/swaps
Sometimes suspend options are available in bios/efi. Might have a look there.

MacBook Air 7,2 suspend does not work


Electron Flow Confusion

Question: Using conventional notation in the diagram below, I understand that the circuit is not complete because the diode is in reverse bias. But knowing that the electrons actually flow from the negative to the positive terminal(direction of the arrows), wouldn't the electrons take a path from the negative terminal of the battery, go through the lamp and stop at the diode(the red path in the picture). If they would, then why doesn't the lamp light up with the first electrons that are able to flow through it before the voltage in the wire is built up and the current stops.
Comment: Electrons don't leave the battery, until they have a return path.
Answer: Electrons can't flow in that direction (right to left) though a diode.
Yes, a small transient current flows while the voltage builds up across the diode (it acts like a small capacitor). In practice this charge is very small (pico coulombs), and would not actually illuminate a lamp, neither could you see the extremely brief pulse even if it could.
Answer: IF "Using conventional notation" then it needs to be applied to the diode as well. In other words, you need to draw the diode under this convention. (change the diode direction)
As you said on the question, electrons does flow from Negative to positive.
(In other words, diode is a diode it does not care which convention or how we chose to draw it, it does what it does best, always!)

Electron Flow Confusion


Why was The Dresden Files cancelled?

Question: Even though the show wasn't very much like the books, I quite enjoyed The Dresden Files. But why was the show cancelled?
Comment: And that's why the licence fee for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)is a superior model for funding a broadcaster. Excellent quality niche shows can be funded without having to chase mainstream ratings. Hopefully someone will pick it up and run with it again, in the future
Answer: In 2007 Jim Butcher, the author of the novels, announced the cancellation of the TV series on his website and linked to a TV Guide article:

...it's official: The show isn't returning for a second season.
A shame, but hardly a surprise, given the reticence to discuss the matter every time I brought it up to Sci Fi or NBC Universal Cable execs during the recent TCA press tour. In their world, it's all about "running the numbers" (in other words: looking at the ratings and budgets, etc.) and to them, Dresden just didn't seem to measure up.
Comment: This supports my long-running opinion that TV is merely an advertising medium with overhead in the form of interesting stories sprinkled in to keep the audience coming back.
Comment: @wbogacz Writers, directors, producers, actors, technicians, etc don't work for free. If not enough people are watching the show, advertisers aren't going to want to pay for ads on the show.  If they don't do that, how are all those people going to get paid?  I'm sure if they all wanted to do it for free, SciFi would have been happy to keep airing it
Comment: @Kevin - You understand me perfectly. Advertisers drive TV. What they buy is airtime. They're not really buying the show - the show fills the airtime surrounding what their product is - the ad. The airtime will be more expensive on a popular show, and they can choose to buy or not buy. This happens regardless of their feeling for the show.
Answer: The show was cancelled because the built-in fan base found out in the first episode that it bore only the slightest resemblance to the fantastic books. This meant that it had to compete with every other show airing at the time to draw eyes, and it just wasn't that special. Had the producers actually made The Dresden Files, it would have been able to tap into the many many people who love the books.
Comment: Any way to substantiate those claims somehow?
Comment: Makes you wonder how important a source materials fans are to a tv adaptation, versus viewers only familiar with the show. I'd ask, but I'm afraid it would get closed as too broad.
Comment: i will say the show DID get me into the books, so I'm thankful for that :-D

Why was The Dresden Files cancelled?


Any "what if" plans for space programs?

Question: I assume that all space programs, manned and unmanned, have many "what if" plans for situations that might happen. For example, on the ISS they had fire alarm and evacuated to the Russian side. Are those "what if" plans publicly available? In specific, what if any of the Apollo missions that landed on the moon had had a catastrophic failure that would have prevented them from taking off from the moon?
Answer: Well, they prepared by writing a speech text for Nixon "In event of Moon disaster". The opportunities to "fix a problem" aren't that many in space. At least no one can hear them scream. And fewer than 20 out of 540+ have perished in space. The blackness is not as dangerous as it looks, when approached with care.
When the space shuttle Columbia failed, NASA afterwards concluded that it just might have been possible to rescue them if they had known about the problem. And that was in the era of the space shuttle when such tasks were envisioned, by the elderly, to be "routine".
Apollo was designed to enable several abort points. Apollo 13 used one of them.
Comment: [Relevant xkcd.](https://xkcd.com/1484/)
Comment: I'm pretty sure lunar takeoff and ascent was one of the few points during the mission when Apollo offered no meaningful possibility of backup or abort. Facts: a single craft (the LM), a single (LM ascent) engine, no alternative abort mode (like during lunar descent when the option of descent/ascent stage separation and ascent stage ignition existed for abort and return), a single shot for rendezvous with the CM in lunar orbit (not enough fuel to go around, not enough fuel to catch up with the CM, and I doubt anyone would want to risk the CM by making any significant maneuvers with it).
Comment: What's the procedure when/if the moon lander can't take off the moon? Are/were there any plans to rescue them somehow?
Comment: What the procedure would be? Not much. Procedure according to manual page 42: Let them fry/freeze/whatever. But the system of abortion options during Apollo and today with the ISS, is certainly an intriguing subject. But I doubt that the actual Moon landers had any options at all. They could just pick a tiny crater nearby to be named for them ever after, and use their space suite as sarcophagus. Space travel doesn't offer second chances.
Comment: There were some backups. The LM had a dedicated abort computer in addition. There were two different planned rendezvous, and if needed the CM could catch up with the LM once in space. So, yes, as far as possible there where a lot of what-ifs.
Answer: They never built it, but the Apollo program had plans for what was essentially a chair with a rocket engine on it. It was an emergency device meant to get the astronauts from the surface into lunar orbit, where they could rendezvous with the command module. Its design philosophy favored simplicity over redundancy. So much so that it didn't even have life support, it relied on the astronaut's spacesuits to provide that.
Here's the relevant wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Escape_Systems
Can you imagine riding that thing?!?!
Answer: Just a quick comment on getting Apollo off the lunar surface in an emergency.
Schmitt and Cernan have described an emergency procedure to "hot-wire the LM".  The ascent engine was very simple by design, and if the systems that fired it failed, it could be fired simply by passing a wire down through the hatch to manually open the valve that mixed the propellants!
It would mean flying with suits pressurised, with the hatch open...
They mention it on this page: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.eva3post.html
Answer: NASA is renowned for their detailed mission plans, including contingency plans for everything that could go wrong.
For the ISS, there is a publically available emergency operations manual with instructions about what to do in case of what emergency. "Fire" is page 34 - 54. However, it is not that easy to understand for a layman due to the cryptic acronyms it uses to refer to equipment and station parts (many of them in cyrillic) and the many cross-references to other operation manuals.
Answer: HERE is an instructive video of the procedure if a fire breaks out on Soyuz.
The astronauts stay cool, at least in their minds, and use their sticks to push the right buttons. That's the plan. Reminds me of the time I was a conscript. But I think that the Russian have a tradition of being able to remotely control most of what happens on their spacecrafts from the ground.
So, first, after having closed their visors, they arrest the ventilation to stop feeding the fire with oxygen. Then they shut down the electrical supplies(!). Finally, if necessary, they decompress the spacecraft and then have to land within two hours which is how long their space suits can supply them.

Any "what if" plans for space programs?


Recording a Screenscast a webinar?

Question: What are some good options for recording a screenscast or webinar?  Often, but not always, they are delivered by goto meeting and are quite often put on during horribly inconvenient times for our office.  Are there simple software that would let us record these on our mac and watch later.  Sort of like Tivo'ing them!
Answer: Quicktime makes movie recordings and is free / included with all Mac OS X. From your requirements I would start there and ask again if you run into issues.
Answer: Screenflow works well for this, with some serious caveats:

If it runs out of hard drive space during the recording, you may lose the whole thing and also have to deal with OSX complaining until some space is freed
You will have to find another way to make sure the computer is on and start the recording at the right time
Many online meetings will require you to make some action when it's time in order to join the group

Thankfully, there are some built-in solutions that can be used to deal with these:

Screenflow is actually very good with disk usage; if there is audio and slides, it's possible to get a full sized 1 hour of recording under 500MB. For recording video, shrink the size of the window showing the video, and this will greatly reduce the file size.
& 3. Automator and applescript are just two of the ways to schedule, launch, do an action, and then shut everything down at the end. A very simple workflow would be: Have the meeting screen ready, verify that Screenflow is running, then schedule a script that wakes up the computer at the right time, presses command-shift-2 (start recording), waits 90 minutes, presses command-shift-2 again, and sleeps the computer.

Recording a Screenscast a webinar?


How to eliminate Internet lapses on my MacBook Air 13?

Question: I have a MacBook Air 13 (mid 2012) running OS X El Capitan (10.11.3).  I connect to the Internet using a Virgin Mobile Netgear Mingle hotspot.  During Internet browsing sessions I will at times experience a browser session which appears to be frozen.  This is noticed when I try to go to a link exhibited on the page that I am viewing and the connection isn't successful.  The browser shows that it is trying to connect, but eventually the new connection fails.  During the time the browser is frozen like this, I can open a new tab and try to connect to www.google.com, and that connection will fail also.  If this happens while using Firefox, switching to Safari has the same experience (Safari also acts as if frozen).  Or vice versa.
I can successfully ping external servers (e.g. youtube.com) during the period when the browsers are not connecting (the ping is done via a Terminal window).  I can use my wife's MacBook Air 11 (mid 2012, OS X Yosemite) and on it, Safari can connect to www.google.com during the time that the browser on the MacBook Air 13 cannot make connections.  Her MacBook Air 11 is using the same Virgin Mobile Netgear Mingle hotspot.  Checking wifi channel on both MacBook Airs has shown the channel # to be the same, so that seems to rule out channel interference as the problem.  During a lapse on 2/15/16 I used the Mingle Hotspot Manager to change the channel from 6 to 11.  The lapse continued, unabated.
When the browsers are frozen, the "App Store" appears to be frozen as well.
I run Wireless Diagnostics during the freeze and look at its "Performance" graphs and detect nothing out of the ordinary.  The situation is self-correcting, it seems, if I wait long enough.  Or, I can restart the computer.  Toggling wifi off and on doesn't correct the freeze. Quitting the browser and restarting it doesn't correct the freeze.
I've researched this problem on the Internet, but I haven't found any suggested solution that corrects the freeze.
These freezes exhibited themselves with OS X Yosemite as well (10.10.5), prior to upgrading OS X to El Capitan.
I have noted a correlation of these freezes with the failure of an application to Quit properly (as noted by its appearance in the Force Quit list (Command + Option + Escape) after Quit has been used).
I attach an output from Wireless Diagnostics Info during one of these freezes.
Answer: I now believe that these lapses/freezes can be blamed on the network setup that I was using.  My brother visited and with his Dell laptop running a version of Microsoft Windows the same thing happened.  I've since switched to a different Internet provider and haven't had the problem again.  The first Internet provider is in the process of discontinuing its service.


Display taxonomy field in node display

Question: I created a vocabulary where terms have an image as additional field.
I want to show the image instead of the term name in the node page. How can I do this?
In Drupal 6.x, I would load the term and display it, but I guess in Drupal 7 with field API there must be a better way to do this.
Answer: You could define your own formatter with hook_field_formatter_info() and then select that in the Manage display screen of the content type/view mode you want to be displayed like that.
For reference, have a look at what taxonomy.module is doing: taxonomy_field_formatter_info(), taxonomy_field_formatter_prepare_view() and finally taxonomy_field_formatter_view().
Answer: You can do it without custom code by using an Entity Reference field (with a target type of "taxonomy term") to link to the taxonomy instead of a Term Reference field.  Set the display mode of the field to "Rendered Entity" and make sure the Display for the taxonomy vocabulary includes all of the fields you want.
If your vocabulary is large, or if content creators need to see the additional fields when choosing to associate the terms with content, you may also want to add the Entity Reference View Widget or Entity Reference Browser.  Both of these allow you to use a view to build the UI that content creators use to select a term.
(That Entity Reference Browser is a sandbox project, but it's a great module and I've been using it happily for the past two years.  I mention it specifically because the OP mentions having an image as an additional field in the taxonomy vocabulary; I really like the ERB for this use case).
Answer: Here's how to do it with the Views Module:
Are taxonomy fields exposed to views?
Comment: I'm not clear how this answers the question.  Yes, you can access taxonomy fields in a view; how does that help you display them as part of a node?

Display taxonomy field in node display


Quantum Tunneling in Dirac Delta potential

Question: In quantum mechanics phenomenon of tunneling is well understood ; we know that there is some finite probability to find the particle in classically forbidden region but potential of this forbidden region should not be infinite (for e.g. In case of infinite potential well, probability to find particle outside well, where potential is infinite, is zero.).
Now coming to my question : we get some non zero probability even in the case of Dirac Delta potential well i.e, particle can tunnel through this infinite potential line (at some point). How is it possible?
Answer: Dirac potential has infinite energy, but zero width. It can be seen as a limiting case of a potential with finite height and width. For example, one could consider potential
$$U(x) = \begin{cases}U_0, |x|<\frac{a}{2},\\ 0, |x|> \frac{a}{2}\end{cases},$$
solve the Schrödinger equation for this potential, and then take the limit
$$U_0\rightarrow \pm\infty, a \rightarrow 0, U_0 a \rightarrow const.$$
Other shapes of potential giving Dirac delta-function as a limit (Gaussian, Lorentzian) can be also considered with an obvious observation that solving Dirac potential is easier.
Comment: So, doesn't it implies that particle will have negative kinetic energy at that particular point?
Comment: You mean that inside the barrier the wave function is exponentially decaying, rather than a plane wave?
Comment: Yes, and also for crossing that infinite barrier kinetic energy of particle must be minus infinity( since K+V=E)
Comment: The operator of the kinetic energy is $\hat{K}=-\frac{\hbar^2\nabla^2}{2m}$. It is not negative but the energy conservation breaks whenever a particle tunnels under a barrier (not necessarily Dirac barrier). This is why the phenomenon of tunneling is not possible in classical mechanics, where the energy is strictly conserved.


How do I include strings from a non-tag field as tags using django-tagging?

Question: In Django, using the django-tagging app, I want to make it so that items included in a field that isn't a TagField (e.g., authors, in this example) are added to the list of explicitly provided tags when the object is saved.
class Publication(models.Model):
    title    = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    authors  = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    tags     = TagField()

If the authors that are submitted are "John, Bob, Mary" and the tags "cooking, fun" are submitted, how do I get the final tag set to be "John, Bob, Mary, cooking, fun"?
I tried adding a custom save function to the Publication class, but I don't think I got it right.
def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(Publication, self).save(*args, **kwargs)
    for author in parse_tag_input(self.authors):
        Tag.objects.add_tag(self, slugify(author))
    super(Publication, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

How do I add in those extra tags?
Answer: I think second super(...).save(...) is wrong.
You doing all right according docs


What is the official file extension for SMILES and SMARTS files

Question: I want to know what is the officially used file extension for files containing SMILES and SMARTS strings. Somewhere I see .SMI/.SMA and somewhere its the full .SMILES/.SMARTS.
Comment: DOS\Win systems traditionally accept only three character file extensions, while Unix/Linux systems can handle longer ones. It is just a technicality, depends on software what they accept/recognize.
Comment: It is just like .htm or .html, both are same
Answer: I don't think I've ever seen anything proposed as "official," though I admit I don't use Daylight's official toolkit.
Open Babel accepts:

.smi
.smiles
.can (ideally canonical SMILES, but that matters more for writing, not reading)

I haven't seen many SMARTS files, but I would suspect both .sma and .smarts are out there "in the wild."
Incidentally, this is probably something to bring up with the OpenSMILES effort. I know there's an OpenSMARTS specification started as well.
Comment: Thanks for the info. (Can't up-vote because it requires at least 15 reps :) )
Answer: Slightly beside the point, but here is what Daylight says:

The "chemical" MIME type, championed by H. Rzepa of Imperial College,
  London, is (hopefully) nearing ratification. Should this happen,
  SMILES will almost certainly appear as MIME subtype, i.e., the MIME
  type: chemical/smiles. Until that blessed day, the IETF recommendation
  is to use something like application/x-smiles or x-chemical/x-smiles.
Comment: Yes, that's something we use internally for SMILES format, clipboard operations and while requesting SMILES data from our components.
Comment: Sadly, if you look at the date, that was 1998. MIME types are also somewhat passé.
Comment: @GeoffHutchison, why do you say MIME types are passé?? They are still heavily used in the modern web, in the Linked Data web even more!
Comment: @EgonWillighagen I see far, far too much data on the web as text, generic XML or other generic types. Software is then left to infer that this text file is really SMILES or PDB, because of source or formatting.


How do I learn more about the nationalities present in the Forgotten Realms?

Question: Tomorrow I am running a pre-written Adventurers League module, Outlaws of the Iron Route, and it describes two people: one as a Talashan and one as a huge Calashite. I have worked out the Calishite was from Calimshan, but I can not work out where the Talashan come from. Where do I find this information?
Comment: I have read more and the person is later described as tashalan.
Answer: Your best bet is older materials.
I would suggest the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting from 3rd Edition. It's over three hundred pages of densely packed, tightly typeset information. It covers regions and countries in broad strokes, with paragraphs on individual cities. It spans a much larger area than any more recent material, and does a good job of it.
Obviously, the history has been updated quite a bit since then - the Spellplague in 4E made a mess of the Realms, though the Second Sundering brought much of it back for 5E. Some of the geography is different - your Tashalan1 is from Chult, which used be an island but is now attached to the mainland (again). That said, the basics of each nation are still similar, the traditions and culture of each country haven't drifted drastically.
1There's no such thing as a "Talashan", as far as I have seen. Many of the early DDEX modules suffered from a marked lack of proofreading. I strongly believe this is one of them.
Comment: The human description in the 5e PHB also has a short blurb of each nationality.
Comment: @TheVagrantDog But is woefully incomplete. SCAG adds a more equally brief descriptions, but still doesn't come close to the level of detail in FRCS for the cultures as a whole.
Comment: Granted, and I use the FRCS myself, but for those who _only_ have access to the 5e rulebooks it may be helpful to point it or the Forgotten Realms wiki out.


Are there any quick, reliable ways to level up in D&D 5e?

Question: I am the Dungeon Master in a new campaign. Since I made the players start new characters, they were wondering if there was a fast way to gain experience. The players wanted the game to still be legit, but they also wanted the game to get more interesting quickly. Some of them are not experienced players and I am afraid that what I throw at them might kill them.
Comment: Can you clarify? The DM decides how much XP the players get, so if you want them to have experience, you can just say "You all gain 100.000xp", but I don't think that's what you want to know?
Comment: @Erik I understand this question as OP thinking of levelling in tabletop RPGs in the same way you think about levelling in video game RPGs. I actually think it might benefit from a decent answer about how tabletop RPGs work in general (players creating a compelling story and the like), rather than focus on how experience points work. I might be interpreting too loosely, though. Question for OP: what is your experience with playing/watching tabletop RPGs?
Comment: I'm assuming that having an 80s action movie training montage that gives them a boatload of XP isn't an option? (Joke aside, that *is* probably what I'd do, and I'd just make it a variation of the "starting at a higher level" rules, but as this is by no stretch of the definition an answer, it's going in comments.)
Answer: Levels are just a tool for enjoying the game
No one will come barging to your RPG table to check if the levels are "legit" in any way - the only thing that matters with the leveling pace is that you and your players have fun with it. This means you can and should adjust the leveling pace to match what your players want - if they feel they're growing in power too slowly, give them more levels, and if they feel they're growing in power too fast to appreciate what they're getting, slow down.
In accordance to this, remember that it is a perfectly valid option to start the game with a higher level character. If what you really want is a high-power campaign from levels 10 to 20, there's little point in spending twice the time just to build up the characters from level 1 to 10 in action.
Consider story- or session-based leveling
I personally use story-based leveling* instead of the more traditional mode of awarding XP for overcoming challenges and combat encounters. You can find brief descriptions of these options in Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 261. In this mode, the GM grants the party levels whenever they complete quests or subquests, at the desired pace. This greatly reduces the need for bookkeeping, and removes the incentive to seek encounters and challenges just for the XP.
However, the primary reason why I think you would benefit from story-based leveling is that it is easy to pace to match the desires of the people around the table. You can eyeball leveling quite easily - if you feel the party has earned a level, you can give them one, and if you're not sure, you can ask the players what they think. Another advantage is that you can plan quests to be level appropriate further in the future, since you can control when the characters level with much more ease.
Session based advancement is similar, except it awards levels on a per-session basis: "one level every two/three/four sessions" are fairly common schemes. You can also mix and match, for example awarding a level every two sessions with lots of action and tight spots, and every three sessions if the players have been less active or the sessions have been shorter.
Remember to let your players voice their concerns regarding leveling pace too, and try to match what they're expecting.
* while often referred to as "milestone leveling", milestones are actually a separate model between traditional XP and story-based leveling,
 also found on Dungeon Master's Guide Page 261.
Comment: Related: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/34919/removing-xp-as-a-requirement-to-level?rq=1
Answer: As I believe there is multiple ways to acheive faster leveling, I decided to write out a list that shows them with short explainations.

Milestones - Simply add milestones to your campaign. These can be used to quickly add experience for the party after completion.
Session Leveling - Some campaigns simply use an "appropriate level" design, where characters level automatically at the end of each session. This means your characters will always be on par for the story you are telling.
Combat - Cherry pick combat for your party. Just because the CR is high for a monster does not mean it is hard to kill. For instance, a ranged party with reasonable speed could easily kite a Shambling Mound which is a CR5 with 2,700 experience.
Role-playing/Actions - There is leeway in D&D to reward experience for basically anything. You might consider rewarding experience for disarming/surviving a trap, or a clever role-playing session that had beneficial effects for the party.
Add Modifiers - Sometimes when awarding experience I will take into account various modifiers which made the event easier or harder. For instance, rewarding additional experience for a particularly difficult fight or action (though this is more of a house rule situation).
DM - As always, you are the DM for your campaign and you can basically do anything you want to. If you feel allowing the players to level faster will make everyone enjoy the campaign more then you can always talk with your players and find your own solution.

As an aside, its worth mentioning that if the players want the campaign to be more interesting early, you can always facilitate that without the need of power leveling them. Make an effort to make the campaign interesting at all levels by adding unique/fun content available anytime.
Answer: I think that, especially for new players, starting at 1st level and having a few sessions with simpler and more fragile characters is important to learning how to play wisely and to not having too many complicated options right away.  Even with experienced players, I like to start at 1st when possible; it helps develop the characters better, especially if they have a few close scrapes or defining encounters while they are fresh.
In 5e, the first few levels go quickly anyway, a session or two each for the first couple, not much more for the next couple.  It isn't until around 5th or 6th that it takes multiple adventures to get a level up.
One thing that can help, especially at low levels (and also is good for avoiding creating parties full of wantonly murderous characters) is that I do award partial experience for handling the encounter, not just for killing it.  A party that looks before leaping, that investigates the danger and the opponents and the situation first, even that simply recognizes the danger of a too-powerful monster and runs away, gets some experience for that.  A party that resolves the threat of the monster by sneaking around it, or negotiating with it, or some other creative solution, gets some experience for that.  This helps weaker characters and parties advance, helps foster creative and intelligent gameplay, and cuts down on gratuitous sociopathy.
Comment: Some DMs would award identical experience for killing a monster, otherwise defeating it, sneaking past it, negotiating with it, or most other creative interactions with it. (Probably not so much for just avoiding going anywhere near it entirely.) Somebody recently commented on another question something like "You don't get experience from killing. You get experience from encounters."
Comment: Yep. Remember that if you give more experience for a combat win than a diplomatic solution, you're incentivizing your player characters to kill rather than talk. Consider what sort of behavior you want to encourage/discourage, and allot XP accordingly.
Comment: Shouldn't you logically be giving *more* XP for diplomatic encounter solutions, as the PCs are missing out on treasure they would be getting by killing it instead?
Comment: @AveRoma: In fact, the official WotC published adventures sometimes do exactly that. Usually the amounts of XP are the same regardless of how they pass the encounter, but sometimes you get more for accomplishing some additional goal that might only be possible through diplomacy
Answer: You can do whatever you want!  You are the DM so you can start them at level 2,4,8,10!  Whatever you want, it's not even cheating!  If you want to earn XP without starting with it then put them in a Arena.  It's one of the fastest ways to earn XP!  I find Kobolds and/or Goblins!  Kobolds would be better though because they are less likly to kill, kill, kill!  I love playing with my cousins and my sister and I even added two cat-like creatures called Tabaxi.they are at level 7 even though they just got introduced into the game
Comment: @Lester welcome to RPG.se. Thanks for taking the tour. You could improve your answer by mentioning the Starting at higher levels section from DMG for the first part and explaining your experience in this "arena-like" setting, as I don't think this is an official guideline from the books. The final part is off - I'm glad you like playing, but I don't see how any of this is relevant to the question. Our format is about questions and answers, so try to only put information relevant to the question and answer here.
Comment: @HellSaint I read that as a larger number.  must have been tired.


How did Poincaré discover the fundamental group?

Question: How did Poincare discover the fundamental group? What was the first instance that led Poincaré to discover this amazing theory?
Comment: In the late 19th century Camille Jordan [introduced](http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Jordan.html) >the notion of homotopy and used the notion of a homotopy group, without using the language of group theory; a more rigorous approach was adopted by Henri Poincaré in his 1895 set of papers Analysis situs where the related concepts of homology and the fundamental group were also introduced.
Answer: The concept of fundamental group was introduced in Poincaré's seminal paper Analysis situs, so that is a natural place to look for some motivation for this concept. In Stillwell's nice translation of Poincaré's Analysis situs and related papers he explains the motivation in one of the introductory paragraphs, written by himself:

Poincaré set the agenda for his 1895 Analysis situs paper with a short announcement [...] In it he raises the question whether the Betti numbers suffice to determine the topological type of a manifold, and introduces the fundamental group to further illuminate this question.

Fortunately, Stillwell also included a translation of this anouncement of Analysis situs. In it, after Poincaré introduced the concept of Betti numbers, we find the following paragraphs (with footnotes from Stillwell):

One may ask whether the Betti numbers suffice to determine a closed surface from the viewpoint of Analysis situs. That is, given two surfaces with the same Betti numbers, we ask whether it is possible to pass from one to the other by a continuous deformation. This is true in the space of three dimensions, and we may be inclined to believe that it is again true in any space. The contrary is true.
In order to explain, I want to approach the question from a new viewpoint.
  Let $$x_1, x_2,\dots,x_{n+1}$$ be the coordinates of a point on the surface. These $n+1$ quantities are connected by the equation of the surface. Now let
  $$F_1, F_2,\dots,F_p$$ be any $p$ functions of the $n + 1$ coordinates $x$ (which I always suppose to be connected by the equation of the surface, and which I suppose to take only real values).
I do not assume that the functions $F$ are uniform, but I suppose that if the
  point $(x_1 , x_2 , \dots , x_{n+1})$ describes an infinitely small contour on the surface then each of the functions $F$ returns to its initial value. This being so, we suppose that our point now describes a finite closed contour on the surface. It may then happen that the $p$ functions do not return to their initial values, but instead become $$F_1',F_2',\dots, F_p'$$
In other words, they undergo the substitution
  $$(F_1,F_2,\dots,F_p;F_1',F_2',\dots, F_;').$$
  All the substitutions corresponding to the different closed contours that we
  can trace on the surface form a group which is discontinuous (at least as far as its form is concerned).
This group evidently depends on the choice of functions $F$. We suppose first
  that these functions are the most one can imagine, other than being subject to the condition imposed above, and let $G$ be the corresponding group. If $G'$ is the group corresponding to another choice of functions, then $G'$ will be isomorphic to $G$—holoedrically in general but meriedrically in special cases$^1$.
The group $G$ can then serve to define the form of the surface and it is called the group of the surface$^2$. It is clear that if two surfaces can each be transformed to the other by a continuous transformation, then their groups are isomorphic. The converse, though less evident, is again true for closed surfaces, so that what defines a closed surface, from the viewpoint of Analysis situs, is its group$^3$.

$^1$ The terminology "holoedric isomorphism" and "meriedric isomorphism" correspond to the modern concepts of isomorphism and homomorphism, respectively.
$^2$ This would later be called the fundamental group in §12 of Analysis situs itself.
$^3$ This is true for surfaces in the traditional, two-dimensional, sense, but not for manifolds of three dimensions. Near the end of §14 of Analysis situs, Poincaré raised the question whether two manifolds with the same group are necessarily homeomorphic.

In conclusion, it appears that the concept appeared quite naturally in Poincaré's attempts to classify surfaces/manifolds up to homeomorphism.
Comment: I think in the text the terms holoedrically and meriedically have to be transposed. (This typo seems to be there in Stillwell's translation as well)
Comment: @Danu: Do you think, perhaps, there were earlier precursors? There's a history in science of naming things after the people who most popularised things, rather than those who actually discovered them; lots of things named after von Neumannn come to mind....
Comment: It's a good guess that Poincare was motivated by classification of surfaces, but no: His motivation was his earlier work on Fuchsian Functions. The fundamental group (of surfaces) is fully present there, including its description in terms of generators and relators, as a group of transformations of the unit disk/upper half plane. In AS he extended the concept to higher dimensions.


Worshipping a black stone, a pagan tradition?

Question: Is worshiping the stone a pre-Islamic tradition? If so why are Muslims practicing a pagan tradition?
Comment: Do you have any such reference to such actions? This is news to me.
Answer: I am not sure know which commonality you're referring to here because Muslims evidently do not worship stones, but you might be referring to their respect for the dark stone at the corner of Kabba which muslims similar to pre-Islamic pagan Arabs consider sacred.
For the why of this, you should note that pagan Arabs were originally the descendants of Ishmail, son of Abraham the founder of the Monotheistic faith that continued into Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So many of these pagan Arab rituals had been intuitively rooted originally in rituals of Abrahamic faith. But as evidenced by history and Islamic narrative some of their originally valid monotheistic rituals had become over the course of time corrupted by non-Monotheistic human distortions and alterations. Therefore an important task of Prophet Muhammad like all past prophets had been to
restore these adulterated religious rituals back into their pure Monotheistic version.
Another important point is that according to Islam, even among Pagan Arabs, there have been a steady line of monotheists who kept true to the original unadulterated version of Abrahamic faith and were therefore wary and disapprove of these pagan beliefs and practices that had influenced the Ishamalite Arabs over the course of time. Prophet Muhammad himself was the last in line of pre-Islamic Arabs who adhered the original Abrahamic traditions and were critical of polytheistic influences and moral decline of the Arabs.


HLSL: how to get/set effectvariable to an array of structs with Direct3D10

Question: HLSL Code:
//Lights
struct Light
{
    float3 pos;
    float3 dir;
    int type;
} m_aLights[3];

How can I get/set an effectvariable to m_aLights with Direct3D10?
Thanks
Answer: say you have a global effect variable in your effect file like:
float myVariable;

you have to create a pointer to this in your code like this:
declare it:
ID3D10EffectMatrixVariable* pointerToVariable; //declaration

point to the effect:
pointerToVariable = pEffect->GetVariableByName("myVariable")->AsScalar(); //in your initialisation

Set it:
myVariable += 0.5f; //so whatever to the variable in a draw call for example
pointerToVariable->SetFloat(&myVariable); //and send it through

There are also methods which are called appropriate things such as AsIntVector, AsFloatVector, AsMatrix, SetMatrix, SetIntVector etc for the appropriate types of variables.
Comment: Yes, I know that but these can not set an array of structs, which was my question...
Answer: This is simple.
First skip when you initialize your effect variable AsScalar() or whatever because this is your own structure, and DirectX does not know your stuff.
Then, the most important thing is when you refresh effect variables every frame.
Do: NameOfYourVariable->SetRawValue(void*) (so address of your struct)
P.s: if it is already a pointer, pass it without "&", offset (if padding problem, add offset or shift will be shifting everything in your structure by passing in the shader), sizeof(yourStruct)).
Note: First, padding can be caused by virtual function thanks to inheritance, so struct should be okay, it is not a class which inherits. Second, in your struct, be sure to place bigger variable first, then place other in a decreasing size order. Make sense? Should be.
Therefore, weird things can appear if not power of two with DirectX so if you start with a float4 as color and place couple of vector3 after, add a float between each vector3 as padding and don't worry, you're not going to add these float but they will set your variable's values in the shader to the right BYTE.
e.g. Vector3
     INT64    (smaller than vector3 = sizeof(FFLOAT) * 3).
     FFLOAT   (32 bits < 64).
     CCHAR    (8 bits < 32).

That's it.


Easily contact all three U.S. Congress people?

Question: No one in the U.S. Congress is willing to provide an actual email address to contact your 3, elected representative (2 senators, 1 representative).  Rather, they have you complete a lengthy, web-based form.  If you want to contact all three of your U.S. Congress people, this means a lot of duplicated, data entry.  Does anyone know of a better way?
Comment: Does anyone know when this changed? I last emailed my senators in 2006, about FISA, and got back responses from both.
Answer: There is an app, called Countable whereby you can send your opinions and views on certain bills or actions of congress directly to your 3 elected representatives with relatively little friction:
On the help page, it lists the functions of the app:

You can use Countable to:

Read clear and succinct summaries of upcoming and active legislation.

Directly tell your lawmakers how to vote on those bills by clicking
"Yea" or "Nay".

Follow up on how your elected officials voted on
bills, so you can hold them accountable in the next election cycle.
Comment: Is there an API for the application that our US, congress people use?  If not, I thought about using Ruby and Mechanize, but one of my reps. uses a RECAPTA.
Answer: You can look up your Rep here.  While it doesn't let you e-mail them directly, my Rep's search result had a link to his web page with a contact page listing several e-mails.
Having a friend who worked as a congressional staffer, the hot tip is that it's better to call your rep and senators office numbers, which the look up does provide.   Their staff will answer and will take down your information including your comments about what you want to call them about.
Even better is to visit D.C. and walk into their office on the hill while Congress is in session... there might be a line, but a staffer will be on hand and will pass messages along.   The Senators are less likely to meet you as they generally have more to do, but you can always idle in the halls by their office and catch them between travel.   In these cases, it's always best to tell them that you are a constituent as they really don't want the optics of ignoring a constituent on the local news back home.   Usually they only have one office, though if they are a committee chair, they might have two offices (the second being committee office, which might be harder to just walk in on).
The Capitol and it's office buildings are open to the public and entry is free (they do have security checks and "guest" badges at the entrances... there not much different then going to your local court house though.
Finally, if you are visiting D.C., you can arrange a tour with any of your congressional members offices.   Usually your Representative will schedule a little meeting time in his or her office to talk about things with you.  Senators, again, are busy so don't count on that.


Material preview mode transparency (Blender 2.8 Eevee)

Question: I am in the material preview mode in Blender 2.8, using Eevee renderer. What material settings do I need to set, to get a transparent object in the viewport? The use-case is when modelling an object with reference side/front/top images - I'd like to be able to see the image behind the object that I'm modelling. Otherwise, the image is covered by the mesh that I'm working on.
Comment: Then I cannot see the images on the reference planes (as they are applied as materials). Or is there a setting to do it?
Answer: Solution 01
Add a reference image
Blender can add Reference images, that are visible in the 3D viewport, but not in renders.
They're great choice for modelling, and have many options available.
Add > Image > Reference

Solution 02
Enable transparency in Eevee
To make a material appear transparent in Material preview, use the Alpha value.
Don't forget to set Blend mode to Alpha-blend.
(If you cannot find these settings, switch to Eevee render engine in the render tab)


Sharepoint 2013 Workflow Not Assigning Task Process to Group Members

Question: I'm using Sharepoint Online to try to fit the following workflow use case:
User with very limited permissions submits a form to create a new list item. This kicks off an approval workflow and sends the approval to a group based on a combo box selection in item form.
What is happening is the group is never expanded and the task processes are not assigned to individual members, even though that workflow action is set that way. I even tried putting it in an app step and that seems to make zero difference.
If I, an admin, start the workflow, it works fine and expands the group and assigns tasks properly.
Here are the permissions the intended submitting user has:
Add Items, Edit Items, View Items, Open Items, View Versions, View Application Pages, View Pages, Browse User Info, User Remote Interfaces, Use Client Integration, Open, Edit Personal User Info.
Does anyone know what is going on? I saw that there seems to be a known issue with SP 2013 and the expand groups function, but it was unclear whether it was fixed in SP Online.
Thanks
Answer: Turns out that the groups that were setup to be selected via the combo box were not set to be visible to Everyone. Once I did that the group expansion function worked properly.


maintain and repair clarinet

Question: i would like to learn how to maintain and repair my clarinet and would like a "dummy" clarinet to practise on. i have a very good Haynes manual to follow but am not confident to do it on the real thing yet.
Comment: I don't know where you're located, but here in the US I've always had great luck at pawn shops - usually you can find clarinets for $30.
Comment: alternative - check out your local Craigslist or equivalent.
Comment: Also - unless you're looking to learn how to bind a crack or other major repairwork,  go ahead and replace corks, pads, springs, etc. on your regular instrument.  Worst thing that can happen is you have to bring it to a repair shop to "repair your repairs" .  Highly unlikely you can do serious damage to your axe.
Answer: If you are handy this way, you can find yourself an instrument that needs a lot of repair at your local music store or online and try rebuilding it. You can find parts suppliers online using a search engine and probably even find articles describing techniques and processes. You can take your time as a beginner and allow your skills to develop naturally, and if the results are less than stellar, you can take it apart and try again. People that do this kind of work are usually very good about sharing their wisdom, so get to know some of them.
Answer: One of my clarinets came from a private advert, and I paid the princely sum of £15 for it. Didn't dare knock the price down more! There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but for that price, I'd be happy to experiment on it as a budding clarinet doctor.
Look around - music schools, private ads, ebay, etc. Put a wanted ad in the local shop, newspaper, etc. Might as well work on a real one rather than a dummy...
Answer: Background: ~8 years working in a band instrument store and repair shop, mostly as a sales rep, but did some minor instrument repair, owned by a man known throughout the country for band instrument repair.
BEWARE!! (cue organ music)
To use a term I initially heard from the aforementioned store owner, there are instruments, and then there are ISOs: Instrument-Shaped Objects. There are a LOT of instruments coming from bad factories (it used to be that any musical instrument coming out of, say, China was no good; nowadays it's a matter of which factory they're coming out of, because there are a lot of good horns coming out of the east) that are not worth the materials it took to make them; instruments that are so cheaply made that the store wouldn't even repair them because after "30 feet or 30 seconds", they couldn't guarantee their work. Any number of things could be wrong with them, but especially the metal parts (of which clarinets have lots) were so soft that they did not resist bending as well as they should. As a result, if you're attempting to repair them, especially if you're not completely familiar with what you're doing, then it becomes difficult to the point of impossible to know whether the difficulties with which you're struggling are a result of ineptitude or faulty equipment.
If you're already familiar with musical instruments, only purchase instruments whose brands you recognize. If you're not sure, find a music (repair) store that you trust and ask them if they've ever heard of it, and what they think of it.
Incidentally, this counsel applies to people buying instruments to play for precisely the same reason.

maintain and repair clarinet


Bread machine yeast substitute active to quick rise

Question: Bread machine calls for active dry yeast. I have quick rise yeast can I still use it.The recipe calls for 1/4 cup water.Do I need to add the water to the recipe.
Answer: Changing the type of dry yeast used shouldn't change the amount of water you need. However, it will probably change the timing, so you'll want to keep an eye on the bread machine and adjust its rise times as needed.
(And keep track of the new times, so you can re-use them if you make the same recipe again).


How would I retrieve data from one data extension and add it to another Data Extension?

Question: SourceCodes are fields we assign to each email. They correspond to the email name. I need to retrieve the SourceCodes from Data Extension One (our source DE used for sending) and append them to the SourceCode column in Data Extension Two (our tracking DE). What is the simplest way to accomplish this? Can someone help me out with writing a query? Thanks.
Comment: I would suggest looking at query activities
Answer: As you want to use a query for that, you can do it with a simple join:
<code>SELECT
      de2.EmailName
    , de2.TotalSent
    , de2.UniqueClicks
    , de2.UniqueOpens
    , de1.SourceCode
FROM DataExtension2 AS de2
    LEFT JOIN DataExtension1 AS de1
        ON de1.EmailName = de2.EmailName
</code>
However, I wouldn't recommend doing it that way, as it would require outputting to a Data Extension that is used for the query (both reading and writing to the same table).
Instead, you could do the same logic in the query that builds the DataExtension2 or use an intermediate Data Extension.
Also, this is assuming that EmailName in both tables is unique. If in the DataExtension1 there might be multiple rows for the same Email Name with different SourceCodes, then indeed using AMPScript or SSJS (be it in the email on the send time or in Script Activity after it) a better way.
Answer: One of the many ways to achieve this is by using Ampscipt. Assuming you want to retrieve and store this data while sending the email only. Below is the code -
<code>%%[
set @emailName = EmailName
set @sourceCode = SourceCode
UpdateDE('Data Extension Two',1,'EmailName',@emailName,'SourceCode',@sourceCode)
]%%
</code>
This script will go into your email message and will fetch the "EmailName" and "SourceCode" from your Sendable DE i.e. "Data Extension 1" corresponding to a particular record selected at the send time and will store these values in your targeted data extension i.e. "Data Extension Two".
Note - UpdateDE function will only work in email context and will be executed at send time only.
Comment: Thanks Nishcha. This solution worked perfectly.


Convincing 18-month baby to sleep in the morning - using a training clock?

Question: Our 18 month old son goes through phases of waking up early (between 4:30 am and 6 am) and sleeping to a decent time e.g. 6:30-6:45. So his early waking doesn't seem to be due to hunger, and he is not particularly happy that he woke up... but somehow cannot settle himself to sleep. He shares a room with his older sister, and falls asleep by himself in the evening. Any drastic measures as "leave him to cry"... are not easy to implement for us, as this hauling would also wake her up :( and result in 2 grumpy kids. Has anyone used the toddler training clock in a similar case? I've read some opinions ranging from: "it's so bright that my kids are awake from it" to "great tool". Is an 18-month old too young to get the clock concept? Any tips on how to introduce it to him? Any other tips? THANKS!
Comment: What's different during the early wake-up phases?  Does his nap schedule need to shift at those points (maybe a little more daytime awake time - even just 15 minutes would make all the difference)?  Teething?  Does he have signs of a big developmental change afterwards such as a verbal explosion?  Does it happen after he goes to bed late or has a short nap for too many days in a row?  Those are all possible reasons for the phase, as is, unfortunately, the earlier rising of the sun in summer.
Comment: My son (15 months) mostly sleeps well, but occasionally wakes up two hours early. He can't get himself back to sleep, but if we bring him into our bed, he just plays, so NOBODY is getting more rest.

Our approach is to keep the lights off or very dim, so it is very obviously still night. Pick him up, give a hug, a diaper change, drink of water -- he gets about five minutes of attention and snuggling. At that point, if we put him back into his crib, he will often settle back down for another hour or so. I do NOT know if this would work for everyone, though!
Comment: @justkt, we noticed that teething definitely causes him to wake up earlier. Excessive sleeping during the previous day has a similar effect (so we started limiting his naps). Other than that we didn't see any patters. His room has window blinds and curtains on top, so it is really dark in the morning.
Answer: I think 18 months is too young for a training clock. Having just looked through a bunch, most of them say for age 2+, and I think the average 18 month old would not understand the "rules".
Can you bring him in with you when he first wakes, if it's still early? If it's dark and you are lying quietly (asleep or pretending to be) he will get the idea it's still sleep time.
Other than that, I wouldn't do anything in particular - this kind of thing goes through phases and usually by the time you get annoyed with it enough to post a question about it, the behaviour changes anyway :-)
Comment: That's what we do (take him in to our bed). But to be honest we are already annoyed....
Answer: I'm pretty sure one of my sisters-in-law and her husband used something similar around 18 months on their oldest.  I don't know the ins and outs of how they used it, and I think it took a few months for it to really "take", but I think he eventually got the point.  I have read similar things about a lot of those lights--some of them can be extremely bright.
I'm not sure that you're going to get much use out of it before age 2.  I think if you start using it now you'll probably still be using it when he turns 2, but it's worth a shot!


Two question about bitcoin transaction signing

Question: I know that the signing should use public key, what if the private key is used in signing the output? Does that mean anybody can use the money in your wallet? And is there any difference between P2PKH and P2SH?
Comment: There are three (not two) questions here
Answer: Signing requires the private key, and commits the signature hash of the transaction to the signature. Altering the transaction will change the sighash, and thereby render the signature void.
The public key is required for signature validation. Only the public key hash is shared with the public in form of the address, from which the private key cannot be derived.
P2PKH and P2SH are both standard output scripts in Bitcoin.

A P2PKH(address) output is spendable by the private key associated with the address.
A P2SH(embedded_script) output is spendable by the embedded script and the unlocking script thereof. The P2SH output script acts as a "wrapper" for other output scripts.
Comment: Really thank you for your answer, I want to ask one more question: say that the user wrong using the private key sign the output, whether an attacker can steal bitcoin from the input address?
Comment: No, because the input contains the signature, which is only valid for the specific tx.


Is it possible to have a global prettify-symbols-alist that other modes add to?

Question: Is it possible to have a global prettify-symbols-alist that other modes add to?
A lot of major modes override prettify-symbols-alist instead of pushing into it.
One solution I thought of is to push the global entries in a hook that runs after the buffer and its mode have initialized. I don't know of such a hook, unfortunately.
Comment: Why do you want to do something like that?
Comment: `after-change-major-mode-hook` is exactly the hook you are looking for.  Globalized modes also act there, so if you needed to do this *before* `global-prettify-symbols-mode` has enabled its buffer-local mode (which I think you probably do, although I haven't tested), then you would want to add to the hook *after* enabling that global mode (or otherwise manipulate the order).
Answer: Modes usually inherit from each other. For example, java-mode inherits from prog-mode which inherits from fundamental-mode. Similarly, many modes inherit from special-mode. If you add a function to both fundamental-mode-hook and special-mode-hook, you should already cover many major modes.


What is it supposed to mean when a question is closed for need of details or clarity?

Question: This question was closed as needing more detail/clarity. Looking at the various descriptions of this reason, I have come to the conclusion that the solution would be to edit to add more details and clear up anything that is unclear. However, with the linked question, I had already addressed every problem given in the comments, with the last edit an hour before the last close vote. What am I missing here?
Comment: @Ichtys King I already gave it in the question's comment but here it is :) : A 1 ton bird weighing a big car yet the wingspan of a extremely small plane (not counting aerodynamics due to other appendages not used to fly). Which -most importantly- is able to perform nosedive attacks without crashing down. Roughly speaking, the heavier and bigger you are, the more damage you will withstand from steep velocity changes. For instance, ants can survive any fall because they're much smaller/lighter, so more prone to air resistance than gravity. At least that's what I understand of physics.
Comment: Good thing for you is that it is 2/5th in its way of reopening at the time of writing this :). I'm not one of the openers though, there are still things that are weird at best and contradictory at worse, which prevents me from imagining a glimpse of an answer. Gave more details in the comments of the question. Also, you should tell what you're looking for a "best" position : One which ensures survival? One to increase their attack, defense...?
Comment: @Tortliena What is weird or contradictory in the question?
Comment: Weird and contradictory: pretty much *don't upset the hyperrealism science uber alles folks*. They don't like it when they can't answer a question using real world science. They don't like queries that don't conform to real world expectations. Generally speaking. Frankly, if you'd just added a sentence at the end of your query that explained what you mean by "best place", you'd have done a yeoman's job. You say "best for flight", but what is your goal? Better take offs? Better handling / flight characteristics? Looks cooler than other dragons? Better for aerial mating?
Comment: @elemtilas I VTC'd because the description of the creature was confusing, nothing to do with hyperrealism. Not sure your comment here is helpful.
Comment: @rek -- That's commentary on the direction I've noticed the forum is going.
Answer: (Note this is less true as of now, as the question has been edited between your question and this answer I started writing here)
The key issue is (was) about what you define as "best" location
The location you put something is more or less dependent on what your "evolutionary" goal is. Like how you choose that your cookies should have raisins or not : Gives a different flavor, that may or may not please everyone. Of course there are obvious non-choices which hardly benefit in any category. Well, excepted not succeeding in those, which can be a goal!
As such, if you didn't put many details, your question would have been more likely closed as being "opinion-based", as this issue would have become more evident. Indeed, by detailing very accurately, I think it was easier for people to presume your intentions, while left with some doubts here and there.
Still, that doesn't mean your description is extremely clear
Here comes a more subjective opinion. I'm bad at miximaxing words on long trails of sentences, especially when its purpose is to represent accurately one of our senses (sight, hearing, smell...). If I have hard times with that, I guess some others would have it.
In order to counteract this phenomena, I usually take an advice from an old friend of mine : Draw a picture! It doesn't need to be beautiful, just to be concise and clear. In this case, I would have gone with some "stickman" lines with some text indicating where the elements are relatively to each other, with perhaps the dimensions you envisionned. It only needs Microsoft Paint (or a vector drawing software if you lean on the "pro"-side).
Another way is to define elements each and order them from head-to-toe, and linking elements together spatially. E.g. : "There is a first set of arms below the head by around 50 cm; Their lengths are about 60cm long, where the hands are lying...". Compared to drawing, this needs some practice though to avoid writing big blocks of text which are not fun to read, though.
Of course, that's only an opinion and it won't apply to others who have a better 'words-to-space translator' or are able to focus more. And not having pictures or ordered technical description wouldn't have prevented me from giving an answer (given that I actually had an argumented one x_x), but to be honest in honesty I would have been far more confident in giving one if I had an overall view I can look at :).
Answer: (Note to readers: the question in question has been edited after this answer was posted. I am leaving the answer unchanged for reference. Please use the edit history of the question referred in the question if you feel the need.)
What the question is missing is a technical description of the aircraft
The question asks where to place the secondary wings of an aircraft comparable in weight to a World War 2 dive bomber. In order to be able to opine about the best place for those secondary wings, one would need to know --

How is the weight of the aircraft distributed;

How is the aircraft powered;

How is the aircraft steered;

How does the aircraft generate lift;

What is the aircraft intended to do;

And generally what is the purpose of those secondary wings.

No, an all-metal propeller-driven dive bomber is not at all anatomically similar to a bird. A large eagle weighs 130 times less than the aircraft in the question; and the mechanism used by birds to generate lift does not work for a dive bomber.
To give you an example, here is a famous seven-limbed dive bomber: the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka:

The 2.7 tonnes, seven-limbed, gull-winged Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber. Drawing by user Kaboldy, available on Wikimedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Note that the secondary wings are placed almost direct above the hind limb, and the primary wings are placed immediately aft of the forelimbs; while the primary wings articulate with the body ventrally, the secondary wings articulate with the body dorsally. The purpose of the secondary wings is to provide pitch control, and thus control the angle of attack of the main wings.
Comment: @Tortliena: Not to mention that there are [canard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canard_(aeronautics)) airplanes, which have a pair of secondary wings *in front* of the main wings. That's why one truely cannot say what's the "best" place for the secondary wings unless the question explains what they are supposed to do and how the bird/dragon/airplane is supposed to fly.
Comment: @Tortliena: On one hand, the question states that the flying object weighs a tonne, which places it firmly in war airplaine territory. On the other hand, it says that it is somehow similar to an eight-limbed bird. But it doesn't really matter; consider the relative positioning of the undercarriage, wings and elevators of different aircraft: you may have a forward wheel, then the wings and under them the main wheels, then the elevator at the tail; or you may have the main wheels, then the wings, then the elevator and finally the tail wheel. It all depends on how the *thing* is supposed to work.
Comment: Aren't you contradicting yourself a little with this metaphor ^^'? You say that "The question asks where to place the secondary wings of an aircraft", but then say that "an all-metal propeller-driven dive bomber is not at all anatomically similar to a bird.". And the question is about a bird. Am I missing something?
Comment: @AlexP I've edited the question to explicitly add in the details you've asked for
Answer: I didn't VTC or downvote, but I didn't like the question, either
First of all, I agree with @elemtilas that WB tends way too often to believe that if a question can't be answered by Real Life, then it's unworthy to be here.

Real Life cannot be an overriding limitation on any question unless specifically requested

As far as I'm concerned, if the question doesn't have the hard-science tag, then it is NOT mandatory that answers MUST reflect real life. The linked question has none of the science-related tags (science-fiction, science-based, hard-science) so IMO the only reasons to close would have been Stack rule violations.
Having said that...
Ichthys King, I'm going to be blunt. It is not my intention to be unkind in any way, but I can't think of a better way to express a frustration I have concerning the pattern of your questions. You remind me of a user from several years ago, @Muze. His account doesn't exist anymore for some reason, but he had a habit of asking any silly question that popped into his head without doing a dram of research of any kind or scoping the question for any real worldbuilding purpose. You appear to do this, too.
Is this intrinsically wrong? No, but it means you ask questions that aren't ready to be asked, which leaves respondents making too many assumptions about what you mean and why you mean it. It's messy, unorganized, and that makes your questions too often opinion-based. I spent a bit of time thinking through my comment to your question, because I was on the hairy edge of voting to close myself. But I eventually concluded there was just enough information that an answer could be had. Obviously, others didn't agree.
Why? Let's use that question as an example, you're creating a fictional creature with fictional wing structures and asking us for a supurlative condition. The "best" place to attach them to the body.
How on earth are we supposed to know? What are the rules of your world? What is the internal physiology of the creature? You've thrown out the laws of biology as we know them, should we retain the Earth's laws of physics? Why does the question even matter? Why is it important to know where the "best" place is, and what are the limiting conditions and goals for judging "best?"1 Why wouldn't any decision you, the OP, made not be sufficient?
You didn't provide any of that. Consequently, the question is too close (IMO) to having an off-topic unlimited number of answers that could justify the placement of those wings anywhere on the creature. Here are some answers that are, as written today, legitimate answers to your question:

The air is thicker on your world, so the extra wings are placed centrally, both vertically and horizontally, to give better attitudinal control.

Muscles must connect to something to give leverage to the flapping action, that forces them to connect at the shoulder blades. Since the primary wings are in front, the secondaries must be in back.

Your world is festooned with religious magic! The first set of wings are near the haunch, representing the power of the bowels to compel the mind when the body is hungry. The second set is on the neck, just below the ears, to represent the limitless fancy of the unbound intellect! The creature is made real in your world through the faith of its followers!

As your creature flies, it forces fluid through the cloaca. The wings are therefore placed under the body, on either side of the cloaca, to ensure the fluid passes away from the body during flight. This keeps the fluid from coagulating along the tail, which would create air friction during flight and compromise the creature's ability to fly. When not flying, these secondary wings fold over the cloaca to protect it.

Can you see the problem? I'm making assumptions about the nature of your world and since you didn't provide any world rules, or context, or even an explanation as to how you'd judge a best answer, each and every one of them is equally right, which is contrary to the Help Center rules that say you cannot ask questions where every answer has equal value. We permit limited lists (finite list of things), but we do not permit unlimited lists (infinite list of things).
Your questions feel too much like you're just pounding them out for the sake of asking them. You spend a lot of time on moderately relevant details (your creature is marvelously explained, other than the secondary wing placement), but never answer the question, "why am I asking this question?"
Am I wrong? I could be. I could be misjudging you something awful. It's a crime if I have and if so, you have my deepest apologies.... But if you want to avoid closures, you need to ask better questions.
Conclusion
When your question is closed for a lack of details, it isn't just details about the object of the question that must be clarified. It's also details about the circumstances, context, and reasoning behind the question that must be clarified.
A good place to start is to ask yourself these before a new post:

Why is this question important to me?
Why can't I just do what I want and move forward?

The answers to both of those questions would help anyone's post.

1 This is important. Asking for a superlative condition (best, worst, largest, smallest, etc.) should ALWAYS come with a specific and detailed explanation of the conditions that justify the superlative. It's actually really hard to do that, because "best" has an unconscious meaning in your head that we will never completely understand, no matter how much description you provide. Frankly, if a question can't be written without superlatives, it isn't ready to be asked.


Is there anyway to show all results in a view initially, but only show 1 result after user sets an exposed filter?

Question: I need to be able to show all results of my view initially but then only show 1 result after the user selects their options form the exposed filters.
Answer: For the record, this seems like a really odd thing to want to do! How would you narrow it down to a single result if more than one matches the filter?
Anyway,  you should be able to use this hook:
https://api.drupal.org/api/views/views.api.php/function/hook_views_query_alter/7
If you check for the existence of filter values, you can then apply a "LIMIT 1" to the query.
Comment: It isn't an odd request when you know the actual use-case. It's a proximity search box that allows user to see which constituency zone they are in on a map. There is only one possible answer. However they still need to see all of the zones on the map before filtering.
Comment: okay! That becomes much easier!  I assume that your filters would mean they'd only end up with 1 result?


Don't forget to upvote the questions!

Question: I'm seeing quite a few questions being answered, but left at 0 votes. I think, in most cases, if a question is worth answering, It's probably worth an upvote, too. Thoughts?
Answer: One of the benefits/side effects of a heavily up-voted question is that it gets broadcast across the network — free advertising, bringing more people into this site. I use that outcome as a catalyst/reminder to up-vote particularly good questions.
Whenever you see an intriguing question that makes you think "Wow, that's what makes this site worthwhile" or even just "hey, I wish folks knew about this", that's what triggers me to hit that up-vote button out of reflex.
Unfortunately, that reflex only comes with top-of-mind awareness and reminders like this post. Keep up the good work and vote, vote, vote.
Answer: My personal method for choosing what to up vote is to vote on the questions that I consider will be useful to others, though I do err on the side of generosity, and I do also vote for questions which clearly demonstrate some effort in their authoring.
Answer: I think its good to keep voting right answers.I have couple of cases on my answers where the one who posted the question marked it right but no votes and that discourages me to spend time here.
Answer: I am still seeing this trend. If you feel the question is worth answering, it should also be upvoted. Let's try and give some points to our new users to promote the boards here!

Don't forget to upvote the questions!


When posting on super user keep getting "An error occured submiting the question"

Question: I'm trying to post a question on superuser.com but keep getting the message "An error occurred submitting the question" when I click Post Your Question.
Answer: SuperUser was recently switched over to the CloudFlare content distribution network, and they are having some problems with the integration in the early-going. If you have this problem, keep trying, or try again later. Most of us regulars on the site have seen this sporadically over the past week or so.


change from email address in sharepoint 2013(online) Workflow

Question: I have a problem. Our workflow sends some notification to user with from address "no-reply.....@...com". But our users need possibility to reply someone who initiated this workflow sometimes. So the question is, how to change standard workflow no-reply email address to the address of person who initiated this workflow? I thought about custom action, but Office 365 sharepoint online has only declarative custom actions. Maybe I could use SMTP? If someone had some sort of problem, please help.
Answer: Sorry to break this news, but this is not possible. Emails are sent from defined outgoing email address and cannot be sent from initiators or custom users ID.
What you can do is, add related person in CC in those emails and you can put disclaimer in body asking to reply to the person in CC field, in case they have any issue.
Comment: That is an excellent idea!  If this were my question I would mark it solved.
Answer: The other answer here is incorrect.
You can send an email from any valid SharePoint user email address using the Call HTTP Web Service Action to send the email from the REST SendEmail endpoint.
<code>[%Workflow Context:Current Site URL%]/_vti_bin/client.svc/sp.utilities.utility.SendEmail
</code>
When creating the Request Body dictionary variable, set the properties/From key value to the [%Workflow Context:Initiator%] variable with value type Email Address.
Reference: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/spses/2014/10/24/you-cant-specify-the-from-address-for-email-messages-when-you-use-the-send-an-email-option-from-a-sharepoint-designer-2013-workflow-action/


How to create Catalina.app for creating bootable disk

Question: I want to create bootable usb disk.
According to the apple help page I need to download Catalina.app
But I can't download it from App Store.
Is it impossible to create Catalina bootable disk if I already installed Catalina?
Comment: What error do you get when you try to download it? What Mac & what macOS version are you trying from? Is it on the compatibility list on the referenced page?
Answer: If one is already running macOS Catalina, just open Terminal and use the following command to download the latest release of macOS:
softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer

Or to download a specific version, even older, use e.g.:
softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.14.6

To create a USB installer, then in Terminal use the createinstallmedia command, e.g.:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

See How to create a bootable installer for macOS for details.

For softwareupdate internal help output:
% softwareupdate --help
usage: softwareupdate <cmd> [<args> ...]

** Manage Updates:
    -l | --list     List all appropriate update labels (options:  --no-scan, --product-types)
    -d | --download     Download Only
    -e | --cancel-download      Cancel a download
    -i | --install      Install
         ... specific updates
        -a | --all      All appropriate updates
        -R | --restart      Automatically restart (or shut down) if required to complete installation.
        -r | --recommended  Only recommended updates
    --fetch-full-installer      Install the latest macOS Installer
        --full-installer-version    The version of macOS to install. Ex: --full-installer-version 10.15
    --background        Trigger a background scan and update operation
    --ignore  ...    Ignore specific updates
    --reset-ignored     Clear all ignored updates

** Other Tools:
    --dump-state        Log the internal state of the SU daemon to /var/log/install.log
    --evaluate-products Evaluate a list of product keys specified by the --products option
    --history       Show the install history.  By default, only displays updates installed by softwareupdate.
    --all           Include all processes in history (including App installs)

** Options:
    --no-scan       Do not scan when listing or installing updates (use available updates previously scanned)
    --product-types <type>      Limit a scan to a particular product type only - ignoring all others
        Ex:  --product-types macOS  || --product-types macOS,Safari
    --products      A comma-separated (no spaces) list of product keys to operate on.
    --force         Force an operation to complete.  Use with --background to trigger a background scan regardless of "Automatically check" pref

    --verbose       Enable verbose output
    --help          Print this help
 %

Comment: In my case the `Install macOS *.app` simply did NOT have `Resources` folder, so maybe [see how use Disk Utility to make bootable from `InstallESD.dmg`](https://superuser.com/a/444086/896280) (if you have the same issue, and your `Install macOS *.app` directory contains `InstallESD.dmg` file).
Answer:
Is it impossible to create Catalina bootable disk if I already installed Catalina?

No. It's quite easy to download the macOS Catalina installer, even if you already have it installed.
However, it's not possible to create an installer even if you have it installed. You'd need to download the installer using the Mac App Store. A benefit of downloading the installer is that it downloads the current latest release of macOS Catalina (which as of this writing is 10.15.3). So you get the installer for the latest stable version and there would be fewer to none updates needing to be installed after using this installer to install macOS afresh.
One does not create Catalina.app, but rather download it from Apple's server computers. Here are the instructions that can be followed to obtain (by downloading), the Install macOS Catalina.app bundle:

Use the following link to access the macOS Catalina webpage:
macOS Catalina on the Mac App Store

On the webpage, click on the View in Mac App Store ↗ button to view the product in Mac App Store app.

Now click on either the GET or the download button (icon showing a cloud with a downward facing arrow), shown towards the right to start the download.
Depending on the current version of macOS running on your computer, either the download would start immediately, or the System Preferences app may launch, prompting you to download the macOS Catalina installer (as shown):

Click on the Download button to start the download. Depending on your Internet connection speed, the Install macOS Catalina.app bundle would get downloaded on your Mac under the /Applications directory and the installer would launch automatically.

Once downloaded, quit the installer, and then following the instructions in the Apple Support document, How to create a bootable installer for macOS, to create a bootable USB installer for macOS Catalina.
Comment: You can't download it at all if the Mac itself cannot run it. You get 'update not found'.


Why we have to damage our muscles to build them?

Question: I know that new muscle cells are made when actin fibers are disrupted. My hypothesis is that muscle mass is limited, from birth, and that nutrients (protein) are only directed to grow muscle when those muscles are actually used. Is this hypothesis true?
Comment: I edited the question in an attempt to clarify. I do not readily see where evolution comes into play. Please add when necessary. The current question is an open goal - the 'use it or lose it' principle applies.
Comment: @AliceD Thanks for your edit. I think you got it right, evolution is quite universal reason for asking for anything we have - so I saw it just like a possible contra-argument for this hypothesis (like "gene for weaker kids may not fix in population")
Answer: Muscles are developed as required by the surrounding environment. This means your body is constantly physically stimulated to grow muscles according to the external forces it experiences (e.g. gravity).
When you train your body, e.g. with weights, you are applying an unusual amount of pressure to your muscle cells, damaging them in the process. In the process of healing your muscle cells, your body will strengthen them in order to adapt to the new physical stimuli, but only when a vast amount of required elements through nutrition is available (proteins).
Quite an impressive feature, right. :-)
I know this from researching personal training/weight training.
Comment: +1. @Probably - I think your question was unclear. I edited to clarify.
Comment: Yeah, I wrote that in description. My question was whether it was developed evolutionary to get the nutritions only to the used organs.
Answer: First, it may not be true that you have to actually damage existing muscle fibres to promote muscle growth, see http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/4/674.full
I do not find papers on the optimality of muscle remodelling, but maybe you'll be interested by a comparison with bone remodelling. Bone faces indeed similar constraints as muscle: it has to be sufficiently strong to resist the forces that we face in everyday life. Astronauts e.g. have paralleled bone and muscle mass decrease if they don't train during flights.
Bone remodelling now is not just reinforcing the bone where it is needed: it also involves bone resorption in places where there is less mechanical stress. E.g, people having a bone implant may lose bone because the implant bears more stress than the implant ! See this paper. Why decrease the bone mass? Well, this is a matter of optimality: just as in engineering, you want the lightest structure that will be able to perform its function. See this thesis and references therein.
Muscle has every reason to perform equivalently. You want each muscle to grow according to its usage in your usual activities, so you need to regulate growth and loss. This is likely to be more important than limiting protein demand—at least as long as food is abundant enough.
A personal anecdote to finish: a friend of mine was a hardworking racing cyclist. He once wanted to take part in a multisport raid, involving some hill running—and couldn't run the way down, because of his overgrown thighs. A little of diversity in his personal training would have allowed him a better balance in muscular weight!


Merging multiple paths in Illustrator CS6

Question: I've got multiple paths which, together, create a single sprite in Illustrator. I'm trying to merge the paths in order to apply a gradient to the whole thing; however, Pathfinder does nothing, and just joining the paths closes open paths and gives me unwanted, and very visible, jagged edges. Is there any other way to combine multiple paths to make them act as a single object, or apply a gradient to multiple paths as if they were a single object?
Answer: Have you tried using compound paths? Select all of your paths that you'd like to combine, and select object -> compound path -> make. Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut is cmd+8 (ctl+8 for windows) This will definitely allow you to apply the gradient across the entire set of paths.
Comment: Making compound path is like creating a multi-part from many single part path.
Answer: Using Adobe Flash, you can break apart vectors and when ungrouped they automatically combine to form one vector. I still use Flash to this day because of simplicity such as this, and it still a great tool for quickly manipulating vectors.
Comment: Welcome to the site!  While Flash may help the OP please be advised he asked to do it in Illustrator.


Reference SharePoint inside a .Net core2.1 project

Question: I have a solution that is targeting .Net Core2.1 Framework. Now inside I want to be able to query sharepoint list items. But I see I can't add Microsoft.SharePoint.dll in the project. I tried changing the targeted framework under project properties but it doesn't work. Can anyone help me understand if it's possible or not?
Answer: If you are married to .NET Core your only real option is the REST APIs, and you are going to have to wire up all the code infrastructure and authentication yourself.
So, not impossible, but a bit lower level.