How do I verify HTTPS connections in Mobile apps?

Question: There are a lot of mobile apps nowadays with payment gateways support.
However, unlike desktop browsers, these mobile apps do not show us an 'Address bar' by which we can identify a HTTPS connection.
How can I make sure I am making a payment on a mobile app with a HTTPS connection?
Comment: Using apps from reputable developers is the best you can do, or use the browser if possible. And no, your local bank *isn't* always a reputable developer, as I've personally saw a banking app which used HTTPS but failed to correctly verify the certificate, accepting any MITM's cert.
Comment: Mobile devices come with an official app store. Proper applications should direct you to the app store either directly in app or with an overlay to make purchases because the average person can reasonably expect these to be secure. If they don't do this, you absolutely shouldn't be putting do any purchases or put any personal information into them.
Answer: Unfortunately, unless you sniff and inspect your own traffic, you can not... My advice is not to use built-in browsers that do not indicate the protocol being used to handle sensitive information
Comment: By that argument, shouldn't you avoid native apps entirely since they don't show whether your data is encrypted in transit or not either?
Comment: @Ajedi32 I would say "Yes". There's Google Wallet and the Play store to handle those transactions. Why would an app setup it's own payment method?
Comment: The problem is many apps do setup 3rd party payment gateways which we can never say for sure are authentic.
Comment: Plenty of things are sensitive other than payment info, too - like session data that would allow a MitM to assume your identity, a la firesheep.
Answer: As @StefHeylen says, you can't, generally. And as @d1str0 says, Burp is one way to see if the traffic is encrypted, if you can proxy the app through it.
It's actually worse than that though - mobile apps don't always only make a single connection to a server. It's not uncommon for them to use HTTP for some parts, and HTTPS for others. They can also do some other tricks which normal browsers don't generally touch. For example, they can certificate pin and refuse to run if they can't make a secure connection to a specific server.
Therefore, it's perfectly possible to have mobile applications that refuse to run when proxied (because they connect to a specific HTTPS server with a specific certificate, which means Burp fails), but which then send payment data through unencrypted means to a different server. The only way to observe this is through packet inspection using something like Wireshark - you'll see a bunch of encrypted data, then some unencrypted data (often JSON or XML) being sent to a different server.
It's also possible for payment data to be sent correctly, then for third party scripts for statistics monitoring (seeing how far users get through forms within the app, for example) to send the same details over unencrypted channels because the app developer hasn't excluded payment fields.
The whole mobile application system is a mess - I'd second Stef's advice to avoid making payments using apps if possible. If you can't, consider using a specific card for those payments, which you monitor regularly for unusual transactions.
Comment: And avoid using these apps at all when using public wifi hotspots (whether they are "secured" or not).
Answer: Using a proxy tool like BurpSuite will allow you to test whether or not that specific app is allowing or disallowing bad HTTPS connections.
Comment: @schroeder maybe someone should make an easy-to-use tool for this ? "CheckMyHTTPS: configure the proxy settings of your device to 184.108.40.206, open your app and we'll tell you if it's safe!"
Comment: although this will be a definitive indiction, it is not a process for the lay-person
Answer: In iOS 9 HTTPS in apps is enabled for any network call. You can temporarily bypass it but it is soon to be only HTTPS for all network calls always.

Starting in iOS 9.0 and OS X v10.11, a new security feature called App Transport Security (ATS) is available to apps and is enabled by default. It improves the privacy and data integrity of connections between an app and web services by enforcing additional security requirements for HTTP-based networking requests. Specifically, with ATS enabled, HTTP connections must use HTTPS (RFC 2818). Attempts to connect using insecure HTTP fail. Furthermore, HTTPS requests must use best practices for secure communications.

NSAppTransportSecurity
Comment: Apps can still opt out from ATS and I guess more did opt out than turn to HTTPS when ATS was added in iOS9. Searching for ATS in StackOverflow will also show you how little knowledge some developers have about both HTTPS and ATS (For one thing, you can *partially* disable ATS but most disabled it completely). Apple does not enforce the use of ATS yet.


Can Kryptonite affect Superman's mind?

Question: I was watching Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, and Lex Luthor framed Superman for killing Metallo by stating that the gigantic asteroid made of kryptonite that was approaching Earth, was affecting his mind. It seemed like a part of his big speech to frame him, so I didn't pay attention. Later on, Batman asks him "Can it affect your mind?", to which Superman replies "No. I mean... It never has" which lead me to believe that he wasn't exactly sure about it. Does anyone know?
Comment: In Smallville, red kryptonite removes Clark's inhibitions. I'm not sure if this was a deviation from the comics, though.
Answer: Here's a list from the wikipedia page on kryptonite. The references check out.
Regarding effects to Superman's mind:

Red Debuted in Adventure Comics #252 (Sept. 1958). Originally just weakened Superman, but to a greater degree. Later caused bizarre behaviour and transformations.
Silver  Debuted in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #70 (July 1963). Revealed by Jimmy Olsen to be a hoax. In Superman/ Batman #49 (Aug. 2008), silver kryptonite was re-introduced, on this occasion shown to be authentic as it causes Kryptonians to suffer from delusions.
Red-Gold    Debuted in Superman #178 (July 1965). Temporarily deprives Kryptonians of their memories.
Red-Green-Gold  Debuted in Superman #192 (Jan. 1967). An imaginary story in which the alloy permanently removes the character's abilities and memories of ever having been Superman.
Black   Debuted in Supergirl #2 (vol. 5, Oct. 2005). Can split a Kryptonian into two separate entities: one good and the other evil. (this one may or may not count, being that it creates a separate superman... but I threw it in anyway)
Answer: The reason it affects him the way it does is IMO similar to how they draw power from the sun, due to the Kryptonian ability to absorb radiation causes them to absorb the harmful kryptonite radiation much more quickly than humans(who it gives cancer to after prolonged exposure) basically making the root of Kryptonian power is also the root of their ultimate weakness. I could be completely wrong though
Comment: We need a supported answer here, not just an opinion.

Can Kryptonite affect Superman's mind?


Connect Taco Radiator system to a new Honeywell wireless thermostat

Question: I have a Taco model 572 valve connected to an existing wired Honeywell TH8110 thermostat for my oil fueled radiator system.  I'm getting a new Honeywell TH6320 wireless thermostat for a new A/C installation and I would like to know if there is equipment available that would allow me to connect the wireless thermostat to the Taco valve.  The Taco valve is currently connected to a Honeywell control board.
Comment: Have you tired contacting Honeywell? Their customer support is top notch.
Comment: I've contacted taco, I will try Honeywell and see what they tell me. Thank you.
Answer: This turned out to be much easier than I expected.  The EIM that had been setup for A/C only had the R Rc Rh terminals connected by jumpers.

I removed the jumper on the Rh terminal because the heating system
had it's own 24V power.
I replaced the wire that was coming from the old wired thermostat with a new one that I connected to the Rh terminal and W terminal on the EIM.

The thermostat had already been connected to the EIM so these steps were all it took.


Why is JSON not used in the Bitcoin P2P protocol?

Question: The Bitcoin P2P protocol uses its own serialisation format for the transferred data.
Is this serialisation considered as more secure against DoS attacks than JSON?
Answer: I do not know if there are any comparisons of the security difference between Bitcoin's P2P messages and JSON, but the binary format is certainly more compact than JSON.
I think it would be reasonable to assume that there are security implications, but security likely was not the major concern when the P2P format was initially defined. Rather ease of implementation and message size were the likely concerns.
A binary format is simply smaller and more compact than JSON strings. Strings take up a lot of space, especially strings for data that represent bytes. Furthermore, it takes more logic and time to convert binary data to a string, then convert it back from a string once received. Any string encoding for binary data is not going to be as efficient as the binary itself. For data that the user is never going to see, and with a protocol that isn't text based, using JSON is not reasonable.
Lastly, while security concerns likely were not behind this decision, there certainly are security implications for choosing a binary format over JSON. Variable length string parsing has traditionally been a source of security problems in many different software. As JSON is string based, there is the potential for anyone implementing something that uses JSON to make a mistake that introduces a serious vulnerability in their string parsing. So a binary format would be better in that regard.
Comment: Thank you for your answer, this all looks reasonable.
I also thought json is not usually validated by a schema so it is easy for an attacker to add extra fields to a message and try to overload servers memory and cpu. In case of the used p2p format each message field is parsed and impossible to add flooding data, so it is more reliable to dos


How do I stop my garage door from opening on its own?

Question: My garage door has opened twice in the last 2 weeks during the night.  Is someone driving by and opening it "accidentally"? How do I keep this from happening?
Comment: in the mean time, **1)** if you have a doorway from the garage, keep it locked; **2)** some openers have a wall mounted control unit, and some of those control units have a tiny switch to disable the opener.  If you disable the opener, or simply unplug the opener's power cord,  make sure you know how to open the door manually in case of emergency such as fire.  Also, unplugging or disabling the opener may make it possible to open the door manually (from outside), in which case it will need to be manually latched closed as well for security.
Comment: Thanks Mike. I have all doors locked and garage doors latched with handle and spring lock mechanism. Will try to reset remote and code box.
Comment: good.  It would be stating the obvious, but two other steps would be to google the model number.  It's likely that the mfr put the owner's manual online, or that someone posted a scanned version.  The other is to call customer service.  Much depends on the age and model that you have. Sorry I can't be of more help.
Comment: Our prior house was built before the age of the rolling code openers, and we had the garage door opener circuit controlled by a switch inside the house, which we turned off at night and when away for more than a day.
Comment: The president used to do that as he flew over in Air Force 1: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/05/us/signals-to-reagan-s-plane-might-be-affecting-doors.html?mcubz=3 This and similar problems with Air Force continued at least up to 2006: http://www.denverpost.com/2006/12/04/air-force-triggers-garage-doors/
Answer: If you have an older style garage door remote, before they used rolling codes, you could very easily have some people driving by activating it accidentally.  I had a similar problem, so I ended up unplugging the remote control portion of it, so the wall mount switch still works, and the whole unit is going to be replaced soon anyways  (electric eye sensor, etc).
Comment: I would agree with Aaron. There are so many DIY projects for making a garage door opener that tests all possible codes in rapid succession.  http://www.instructables.com/id/Garage-Door-Opener/  Some of them have been reduced to a mobile phone application that only requires a $5 device to be connected to the phone. Also, if all the homes in your neighborhood are about the same age, there's a good chance the same company setup the garage door systems for all the houses, and a common open code is probable.
Comment: That instructables URL is interesting, but that particular one is just controlling the inside-the-house X10 setup to simulate a push on the button, not sending RF to the garage door opener
Comment: Agreed. There are at least 20 similar projects, some of which actually communicate with the external receiver. I just wanted to make a point, and draw attention to the existence of such DIY projects which, while academic in nature, are open to considerable abuse.
Answer: I have three Genie garage door openers.  Two years after installation one started opening and closing on its own. I took the batteries out of the transmitters, shut off the switch on the door button, and reprogrammed the open/close limits. Nothing worked.
When checking the door button/wiring for a short, I found that one wire from the wall button connected to the back of the opener had worked loose and was just lying against the contact.  I slid the wire back in and made sure it would not pull back out. End of problem!
Answer: I had a similar problem KennethR - it took a couple weeks to figure out what happened - the problem was: I was programming a new key pad to open my door. Apparently when i had the the opener in LEARN mode my neighbor came home and opened his garage door with his car opener-and his opener became programmed to open my garage door.
Therefore when ever he came home and pushed his opener to open his garage-mine also opened. Since he closed it via the open/close pad when he went in his house his door would close and mine wouldn't because his inside button wasn't programmed into mine - only the one in his car.
Maybe when kennethR was programming one of his openers someone at the neighbors used the keypad and that got programmed to open his.  The remedy is, as KennethR did,  clear all devices from your garage door by holding the learn button for 30 seconds -and reprogram all of your openers to your garage door. And check that no neighbors are opening their doors when your programming you openers.
Comment: Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. Good answer; keep 'em coming!
Answer: Are the openings related to any particular environmental conditions? I have an occasional false open when it gets very cold. I suspect that the safety mechanisms are triggering it (It also exhibits some other mis-triggers of the safeties), but I haven't proven that yet.
Comment: I had the same issues.  Open it up and check for cracked solder joints.  Age/vibration leads to cracked connections and these can be very sensitive to temperature changes.
Answer: Had this happen four times hours after I had left the house. After changing the control pad it happened again. Bought a WeMo to kill the power when I leave.
Answer: If you have a home warranty, see if it covers it. Check the owners manual, check for obstructions, the eyebeams, (dirt, cobwebs, etc)
loose connections, such as wiring, eyebeams or a stuck switch.
Also home settling can misalign the beams.
It may simply need for a readjustment or just unplug the cord, wait (according to the manual) to reset, plug back in, try again.
Answer: My garage has a switch (just a light switch) that turns off power to the garage. My home inspector said it is useful when going on vacation to prevent anyone from opening the door.
I'm not familiar with what features newer openers have, but having a switch to turn off the power would definitely help.
Answer: I recently had the same problem,our door would be open at odd times. I was working on the problem when suddenly the door opens. I walk outside a the neighbors kids had used a key pad to open their garage coming home from school. I asked the neighbor to try the key pad and sure enough their key pad would open and close my door. Their remotes in their car did not open my door nor did my remote open their door. Only using the key pad would open my door. I reset my door opener codes by holding the learn button in until the light went out. I reprogrammed my remotes, problem solved. Hope this helps.
Answer: The 2003 Craftsman door opener on my primary door started doing strange things like that.  I would find it open during the night, the opener lights going on/off randomly while I was working in the garage, and sometimes no response to any controls.  My secondary door that is the same age, but used less often, had none of these issues.
Some online forums suggested replacing the motherboard, which just isn't practical from a cost standpoint for such an old unit.
I was shopping for a new opener when I decided to inspect it closer.  I completely took it apart and inspected all of the solder connections on the board that is under the side where the control wires terminate.  Under magnification, I ended up finding about a half dozen cracked solder joints.  It's the smaller board with the power relays and transformer.  I do not recall any issues with the motherboard although I thoroughly inspected it for cracked solder as well.  After re-flowing all solder connections and putting it back together, I have had zero issues since.


A lot of bids and asks, but no volume

Question: I'm looking at an option and it has a lot of bids and asks, but zero volume. Does this mean that the market can't decided on the price of the premium because the stock itself is moving? Just curious what this means or why this occurs.
Answer: I assume that by zero volume you mean that no contracts have been traded today rather than there is zero Open Interest.
If no contracts have traded then there is no interest in the options so far.  It's likely that the options are illiquid and few trade on a daily basis. It has nothing to do with "the stock itself is moving".  If the stock was moving up or down significantly, there would likely be some contracts trading.
You mentioned that you see a lot of bids and asks.  The market isn't having any trouble deciding on the price of the premium.  Those B/A quotes are the current collective opinion of what the option prices should be.
Comment: It would be good to note that the bid and ask are likely from a market maker who is obligated to quote the option -- signaled by
round-number quantities and a relatively fixed (and wide) spread that is maintained as the option moves up and down. If the bid and ask were driven mainly by organic orders from traders, then some transactions would likely be occurring. So it's not so much a "collective opinion" as perhaps one firm's pricing model, with the wide spread preventing arbitrage of any small mispricing.
Comment: Interesting point. When professional options traders quote prices, we use units of Vol rather than Dollars/Pounds/etc. Precisely because the dollar value moves with the underlying so much.
Comment: "Collective opinion" means all  bids and asks on the order book, regardless of whether  from organic orders from traders or from a market maker obligated to quote the option - or from both. Wide spreads are due to lack of interest in an option or security. Organic traders may be the bid and ask without trades occurring.With illiquid equities, there have been times where for long periods of time, I have been the bid and the ask price as well as he entire size on both sides and no trades execute at all. If the MM or any other trader wants in, it's only a penny to become the center of the pack.

A lot of bids and asks, but no volume


How Do I Glue Multiple Small Pieces Of Curved Wood Together Without Clamps

Question: I am building a sculpture using curved shapes. I'd like the appearance of a continuous, flowing object. Due to the curves and small size I cannot use clamps. I plan on the sculpture being 5 feet tall and 1 foot wide using various shapes around 3x2 inches. Any advice to make this strong and appear seamless?
Comment: Plastic zip-ties...
Comment: What have you tried? If you want to make art from wood and glue, you should invest your time in several studies to work out your aesthetic and practicalities. Also, this question is a bit too broad for SE sites. It is understandable that you are asking for a broad discussion of your challenges, but Q&A sites work best with single specific answerable questions.
Comment: I agree that this is too broad.  Show the specific things that you're trying to hold together and what types of clamps you've already tried and why they didn't work.  Include photos and more detail.

That said, I'd look to faster glues, like CA glue with accelerator.  With thick glue on one piece and accelerator on the other it will cure in 10-20 seconds, so you can just squeeze it with your hands for a bit and then you're done.  It can get expensive though...
Comment: Hi, welcome to SE. Part of your problem may be a mistaken belief in how things like this are normally made, they aren't generally to shape and then glued together, rather they are glued together to a very approximate version of the final form and *then* shaped. So before the final shaping the form of the thing is much more amenable to conventional clamping since it's full of straight/square edges.
Comment: Another thing to be extremely wary of is that in order to be structurally strong some glues — including *all* forms of PVA, and foaming polyurethane adhesive — require firm clamping. If you don't clamp, and clamp *hard*, you get nothing like the full strength potential from the adhesive and the joints can readily fail (when by comparison if you do them properly they end up stronger than the wood around them).
Answer: A photo or drawing representative of the shape of your parts would be useful.
The strength of your assembly will depend on the force you can apply, in the example you provide, without clamps.
Masking tape can secure individual parts while the glue dries, but the strength of the joint will be far less than if you were able to use clamps.
Strong cord wrapped around a shape, with a loop to one side which can be twisted to tighten the assembly may provide a stronger glue joint.
Strap clamps exist which work in a similar manner. They use a strong webbing that is "cranked" in, to create the necessary force.
If you can tolerate holes in your work, to be filled later, brads can be used to join components. Drive the head below the surface then use wood putty and sand smooth.
Screws can be used in a similar manner, especially if the holes are counterbored, allowing for plugs to cover the screw head.
If succeeding parts overlap, the holes for the brads or screws would be covered and only the last or outside portions would require filling.


Is it legal to record someone who explicitly tells you not to?

Question: If I demand that someone with whom I am having a private conversation not record it, and they surreptitiously do so, is that recording illegal?
Comment: Where are you and where are they? The law on this is highly jurisdiction specific.
Comment: @Nerogris ...Mr. President, you may want to consult your own legal council on this one...
Comment: If you cant indicate the jurisdiction, then this is too broad for this forum, in my view. Voting to close.
Comment: Unfortunately I don't believe it to be wise to disclose where I am aside from to say I'm in the US. I can add the detail that it was a private setting.
Comment: Yes, "US" is too broad;  the law differs between states.
Comment: I've actually moved since then. At the time I asked this question I was in KY.
Answer: This very much depends on where you are. Different jurisdictions have wildly different laws about this.
Some places are very permissive. You can record a conversation that you aren't even a party to so long as nobody has any reasonable expectation of privacy. In others, affirmative consent is required from every party to a conversation before it's legal to record it.
The laws run the entire spectrum. Some places allow you to record anything you're a party to without permission, but you can't record others' conversations. Some places require you to disclose, but not obtain explicit permission. Some allow you to record but restrict who you can disclose it to. Some allow you to record or ban recording only under certain circumstances. It's a really wide gamut of laws.
Since you don't say where you are, who you're recording, or why, there's no way to really answer the question. Here's a good rundown on the United States. This Wikipedia article covers lots of different countries, but only with regard to phone calls.
Comment: That's pretty much what I found out on my own. The difference is that consent was explicitly denied.
Answer: This is actually more than 1 question.  In the state of WA, for example, it is illegal to record a conversation unless all parties agree to it.  However, simply informing all parties that the conversation will be recorded and their continuing to participate in the conversation creates a legal consent on their part to record the conversation.
If you are in one of the 1-party-consent states, then any of the participants of the conversation can record it without needing any permission from anyone else.  To the best of my recollection, 40 of the 50 states are 1-party-consent states.  So where you are will fundamentally determine what the answer to your question is.
As another matter, if you are in a place where you don't have an expectation of privacy, you can be recorded without any participant of the conversation giving consent.  What constitutes a place where you don't have any expectation of privacy may differ depending on your local laws.  Some of the examples include cities in which it could be any public street, while in others it can be any public street and any place of public accommodation (stores, cafes, etc.), while in yet others it may be any government facility.
It maybe possible to deny consent to record a public performance, but in most places the only way to deny the right to record a conversation is to state that you will not have the conversation unless all other parties affirmatively agree to not record it.
Answer: There is a division in the US between 1-party consent laws and all-party consent: it's clearly legal in the case of a 1-party consent jurisdiction.
If you are in Washington, it may be against the law, then again, maybe not. Washington is an all-party jurisdiction, but the law prohibits recording a

Private conversation, by any device electronic or otherwise designed
  to record or transmit such conversation regardless how the device is
  powered or actuated without first obtaining the consent of all the
  persons engaged in the conversation

The statutory consent requirements look fairly tight:

Where consent by all parties is needed pursuant to this chapter,
  consent shall be considered obtained whenever one party has announced
  to all other parties engaged in the communication or conversation, in
  any reasonably effective manner, that such communication or
  conversation is about to be recorded or transmitted: PROVIDED, That if
  the conversation is to be recorded that said announcement shall also
  be recorded.

Observe that parties do not have to say anything like "okay" to have consented, they simply have to speak, knowing that they are being recorded. As decided in State v. Townsend, 57 P.3d 255, such consent can also be "implied" (not via the aforementioned statutory loophole). This case involved electronic messages, which are by nature "recorded" multiple times in the course of transmitting the message (plus, an illegally recorded communication cannot be used as evidence). The court finds that:

a communicating party will be deemed to have consented to having his
  or her communication recorded when the party knows that the messages
  will be recorded

The crux of the decision comes down to the point that the person being recorded should have known that he was being recorded, yet continued to communicate (thus, consented). Making a distinction between "knows that it will" and "knows that it may" is unlikely to gain much legal traction.
California, another all-party state, says (Cal Penal Code 632) that one

who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a
  confidential communication ... records the confidential
  communication...shall be punished...

The California statute directly address what is a confidential communication (private conversation):

(c) For the purposes of this section, "confidential communication"
  means any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably
  indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined
  to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public
  gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or
  administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other
  circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably
  expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.

Under the described circumstance, if a party suspects that they may be recorded, then they reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard. That expectation can be defeated if the other party promises not to record, but not if you announce a prohibition against recording (you have no authority to compel an outcome). By continuing to speak in the face of a lack of response to the question, you may be deemed to have given consent.
The only way to know for sure is to look at how the courts treat implied consent in an all-party jurisdiction when the offended party articulates a suspicion that the communication is not private and does not receive an assurance of privacy, as you describe. I don't know of any case that definitively answers that question.
Comment: That's pretty much what I found out on my own. The difference is that consent was explicitly denied.
Answer: Illegal in 2-party consent state.
Perfectly legal in 1-party even if consent is explicitly denied: your denial has no legal effect as you cannot deny someone's legal right. All you can do is stop the conversation.
Comment: It would only be legal in a 1-party consent state if you assume the person making the recording is a party to the conversation. Otherwise, the person recording would need to obtain consent from at least one other party to the conversation OP is involved in. It's almost always illegal to record a phone call or conversation if the recorder is not party to the conversation, does not have consent from at least one of the parties, and could not have reasonably been overheard.
Comment: @A.fm. Yes, obviously. The question deals only with party to conversation, not outside observer.


Is there a feasible workaround for Leica M Monochrom DNG files with Apple aperture?

Question: So far Aperture does not support Leica M Monochrom DNG's and the best way I have found to get the files into Aperture is to open the DNG's up in Adobe DNG, export them as TIFFs and import the TIFFs into Aperture. This does the job I suppose in a round about clunky way, but you obviously lose DNG control inside Aperture.
If anyone knows a better way I would be most grateful.
Comment: Have you considered switching to Lightroom? It sells for only about $80. Scott Borne has a set of postings about switching, moving your library, etc. I followed them with good luck. I liked Aperture's workflow better, but got tired of Apple's slow release schedule.
Comment: Yeah been there with Lightroom. The workflow is a bit backward and once you're in the only way to export your entire library back out is using Jpegs. Apple is slow with updates but I much prefer the whole Aperture interface so I'm going to stick with it right now. Thanks though!
Comment: No interest in starting a LR vs Aper discussion. I too prefer the Aperture workflow. I just prefer the LR features a tiny bit more. Lens correction is a great ability -- maybe not as important with Leica lenses.
Answer: There may be a work around using Adobe DNG Converter.  I don't have a Mac to try it on, but it can convert many DNGs to a more generic type.
Comment: Did this actually work? It seems like a long shot to me, since the files are _already_ DNG.
Comment: yes. i converted them to an older version of dng and turned of linear in custom settings and it went in and retained the raw editing features. it's still not ideal, but it's better :)
Comment: I just tried this with a new batch of shots (replicated the above) and it did not work this time. I can't understand why that would have happened...
Answer: Good news, Aperture now supports Leica M Monochrom DNGs!
Enjoy.


Who are eligible to perform Ekadashi vrata?

Question: Are women (married and unmarried) eligible to perform Ekadashi vrata?
Comment: Fasting on Ekadashis and the associated vrata. @hanugm
Comment: What do you mean by Ekadasi vrat?
Comment: Related: https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/q/14865/4732
Comment: Everyone is eligible to there is no such restriction. Exception includes ur not well and things like that.
Answer: Narada purana says that anyone can perform Ekadasi Vrat. They include Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Sudras and also women

I shall describe another Vrata well known in all the three worlds,
which subdues all sins and which bestows all the desired benefits. O
Brahmana, to those who perform this rite with devotion to Visnu,
(whether they are) Brahmanas, or Ksatriyas, or Vaishyas or Sudras or
women, it bestows salvation. It is very pleasing to Visnu. The holy
vow called Ekddasi Vrata! (holy rite on the eleventh day) verily
bestows everything that is desired by men. O Brahmana, it should be
performed by all means, sinceit is very pleasing to Visnu.
[1-3, Chapter 23: The Greatness of Ekadasi Vrata, Narada Purdna]

Since women is mentioned explicitly, it can be inferred that there is no prohibition for either married or unmarried women. Anyone can observe this vrat.


How to let people know you are stranded in time?

Question: You've traveled back in time 65 million years, with no way to return. What evidence can you leave to ensure future humans will know of your existence?
Comment: @Pete Of the billions and billions of dinosaurs each dropping thousands of turds over hundreds of millions of years, how many have been recovered? The chances of your particular turd (or your bones, for that matter) getting recovered are statistically insignificant.
Comment: @kingledion - What about [dinosaur turds](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolite)?  I think there's plenty a human can do that could survive that long.  Making it findable is the hard part....
Comment: An interesting question, but I don't think there is anything one person could accomplish in a human lifetime that would survive 65 million years.
Comment: @kingledion - Precisely.
Comment: Supposing you could even guarantee that what you left would remain intact, and be discovered, what could you leave that would be seen as evidence of time travel?  Wouldn't modern humans be more likely to attribute the discovery to a hoax, aliens, or a faulty dating process than time travel?
Comment: Don't touch anything or breath on anything, or else there might not BE future humans!
Comment: A related question: I live in modern times.  What evidence can I leave behind to ensure future humans will know of my existence a mere 1000 years from now? 65,000,000 years is a long time.
Comment: To point out the bleeding obvious: the time traveller isn't lost in time they're marooned 65 million years in the past, with no way of return. Perhaps time machines should be equipped with transtemporal communications systems. Could this be too simple? "Help! My time machine is broken. I'm stuck 65 million years BP. Come and get me!" Note" BP = "before the present" Don't worry. This is geologist speak.
Comment: Duplicate of [this](https://www.quora.com/Youve-traveled-back-in-time-65m-years-with-no-way-to-return-What-evidence-can-you-leave-to-ensure-future-humans-will-know-of-your-existence)
Comment: A gold wedding ring would be identifiable I guess, but I don't know how to make it findable.
Comment: @CortAmmon Leave lots of Long Now Rosetta Project disks around with your name inscribed within: http://blog.longnow.org/02008/08/20/very-long-term-backup/ (good for 10,000 years) or chisel your name in stone in a desert cave.
Comment: Or bury the message in amber - like the 99 mya feathers on a dinosaur tail: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur-tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/
Comment: @James but anything you might do in the past has already happened before you travel back in time, so it wouldn't affect anything
Comment: http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/13/3157081/andra-sapphire-disc-data-million-years     This is about the closest thing I could find.  If you brought it with you, to an isolated part of the world where you knew people were digging today and left it there.
Comment: @a4android You're assuming there is some means of transtemporal communication.  There may not be.
Comment: Assemble a group of long life radioactive isotopes into a message.
Comment: @LorenPechtel Not quite. I was only facetiously suggesting what if there was, to pull a few legs. In case you're unfamiliar with that idiom: that means it was a joke.
Comment: @Snowlockk Expand on that idea and you've got an answer to the OP's question. So go for it.
Comment: I'd say use something like nazca lines, but they are nowhere near old enough. One man probably couldn't make them in one lifetime and they would probably be distorted or destroyed by geological processes.
Answer: This is very dependent on the technology you have available.
Given enough tech my approach would be retroreflectors on the moon.  Build in as much redundancy as you can, both in the number of reflectors and how each is set up.
Each reflector has a gold wire coming off it leading to a buried capsule containing your messsage etched in metal foil, layered with a different metal so the whole thing doesn't just weld together.
If I couldn't get to the moon my second choice would be to head to Namibia and hope the desert there already exists.
If so I would go to a point deep in the desert and bury several message capsules.  I would then make a ring around this many miles out.  Drill a deep hole, place in it a tube.  On the bottom is a lump of U-235, on the top is another lump.  There is a support holding that upper lump that has radioactive material incorporated into it such that the decay slowly weakens the support.  Calibrate these to break in 64 million years.  (Of course this won't be perfect, the actual failures will occur over time.  If you can be precise enough edge it closer to 65 million years)  If the tube is undamaged when the support breaks there is a decent chance you get a nuclear detonation.
(BTW, for those who think you need something more complex:  This is not a reliable bomb, you have a decent chance of a fizzle.  It also must be U-235, a Pu-239 bomb like this is a certain fizzle, not to mention that your Pu-239 bomb will have long since decayed.  However, if even one explodes it will be noted and fizzles will be found.)
In time somebody is going to discover the remains of your bombs.  While natural nuclear reactors exist there's no known way to get a natural nuclear detonation.  Thus even the discovery of one bomb crater (remember, the craters aren't all that old, they'll be much more visible than anything you did 65 million years ago) proves intelligence at work and would trigger a major effort to figure out what's up.  If you get three detonations you provide an indication of the location of your buried messages.
Comment: Difficult but incredibly clever. +1
Comment: Why all the way out to the Moon? Put the retro-reflector in an Earth orbit instead. Also make some of the faces non-reflective, and rotate it. You will have a passive blinking beacon in orbit. This will attract attention.
Comment: @MichaelKarnerfors If you leave it in orbit it's much more likely to end up knocked out of orbit at some point.  And there's no guarantee anyone will shine a laser on it if it's in orbit.  A radar retroreflector will have a **much** shorter range limit than an optical one and if you don't put it awfully high it's going to come down in the intervening 65 million years.
Answer: This was originally posted to the Puzzling SE, which means that the poster has a specific answer in mind.
Since they chose the odd value "65 million years" instead of a round number, it is probable that the intended answer is:
You should cause the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
Answer: The problem with this question is you don't say what I have available to use to send a message.  If I have no modern tech, I'm probably dead before I can leave anything that lasts a few years, let alone millions.  Bacteria, animals way more experienced in eating other animals, unknown flora, lack of safe food supplies... I'm in too much trouble to worry about sending a message, I'm just trying to survive the night.
If, however, I'm a fully equipped traveller from the future with food and medicine enough to last a while, I would probably do what that one answer on the dupe question suggested and smelt gold and silver into coins and scatter them all over the North American Craton in hopes one might be found.  Of course, Gold and Silver are nice for chemical stability, but not very sturdy for mechanical stress, so if I was able to smelt steel I might do the same with steel roundels and ingots.  I'd have to find some nice, boggy place to put my stuff, and hope somebody finds it... I'm kinda lucky, because humans have all of future history to find it.
The best way to send a message forward from 65m years ago?  If I have the ability to travel back in time, with any luck I've got the technology to easily achieve orbit.  Using my advanced computer from the future, I'd compute a trajectory that would put a microsatellite in the vicinity of Earth in 65 million years, and hope I have the delta-V to put it there.
Or, if I have the Delta-V, I'd try to put a metal or stone tablet at a Lagrange point;  then I'd hope that somebody in the future would put a probe or park a ship there and wonder what that artifact is floating nearby.  With any luck, the solar wind wouldn't have destroyed my message.
The key, though, is that 65 million years is a long time.
Comment: If I was a *fully* equipped traveler there'd be a lot of questions to answer about my camper van in the fossil record.
Answer: The real question is would anything be left after that long? Even metal alloys would erode incredibly in that time. Even so if you made them unmistakably intelligent shapes, it still could be un-recognizable by then. There is a chance if you made enough of the same shapes, and scattered them around the globe there would be evidence left. Personally I like the Mt. Rushmore effect. So my answer is spend your entire life, aside from time spent surviving, carving and breaking the biggest rock formation on earth, and then spend even more time burying the formation in sand and dirt. If you made a sign or symbol in the rock that was large enough, maybe even carved out of a mountain, it might just stay. especially if you buried it hoping that humans would detect it later with some sort of sonar or infrared device, we use those devices nowadays to detect oil and mineral deposits.
Comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber#Geological_record - "The oldest amber recovered dates to the Upper Carboniferous period (320 million years ago)" - so certain things may lasts for long time - just dip messages in to the resin
Comment: To go along with @MolbOrg 's comment, there was a recent article about finding [an intact dinosoaur tail](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/08/health/dinosaur-tail-trapped-in-amber-trnd/index.html).  I would advise, however, to leave LOTS AND LOTS of such amber messages.
Comment: @Draco18s woow, that just super, lol, excellent
Answer: Forget metals. Gold aside, none will last 65M years. Instead, think fired ceramics.. A humble dinner-plate will survive until it is ground into dust by erosion or melted along with the rock it has become part of. It's a perfect techno-fossil.
You can easily mass-produce a message for the future using a mould or a stamp on your wet clay. Aim for quantity not quality, because you have no good way to predict where to leave your message tablets so they will survive and be near the surface 65M years hence.
That's it, really. Scatter them around and hope. We can be pretty certain there was no house-brick using dinosaur civilisation because no such fossil bricks have been found
BTW if you have the technology to make big  hydrogen bombs, and are willing to unleash such on the environment, evidence of that should survive. Craters lined with trinitite and shock quartz, and various long-lived isotopes that are not found in nature. The fallout layer might be global and detectable, as was the Iridium from the vaporised meteor that killed the dinosaurs. But would you survive that fallout? And, you'd still need ceramic tablets to carry an actual message.
Answer: Just few things that can survive that long, and most of them are hard to do and require process like many had answered here.
But you can do something that's quite easy, not a hard thing to do (while it need something to be hard), and it's already imprinted on our DNA :

just breed. Fill the Earth with your offsprings.

And then tell your saga to your kids. For sure it would change the history of earth and mankind, but you get your message to the future anyway.
Comment: This is easier said than done if you are the only time traveler.  I doubt you'll find Raquel Welch waiting for you if you go back 65 million years.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Years_B.C.
Comment: @HarizRizki: Ok, I see your point.  I wouldn't have posted my comment had you stated in your answer "...assuming you have a mate with you...".  I guess another valid answer would be "You and the other 6 billion people who also went back in time with you can just die and at least one of your skeletons will surely be found."
Comment: How would you suggest you breed when the nearest human female is ~62.5 million years away (assuming you can even breed with them, not sure if homo sapiens (~64.8m years away) or homo sapiens sapiens (~65m years away) might be needed for that)?
Comment: No, the question didn't stated that I was stranded alone. While many answer can take any future equipment (that even I don;t have access to it right now), Mine just take a human partner with (this almost everybody can have access to).
Answer: In light of the feathered dinosaur tail that was found embedded in amber, I suggest you go hunting, then write a note, pin it to the dino, cover it in tree sap, and bury it.
Do this a bunch of times and wait.
You could also just write a bunch of notes and cover them in tree sap without the dinosaurs, but that's less fun.
Answer: Being from the present, you could know what artifacts survived through the years from memories of looking through museums and literature in your proper time. Also you would know the location of famous fossil digs, cave paintings etc.
This would enable you to pick sites with the most potential of being discovered. Lest your meddling interfere with history, definitely make many messages, but at least you know where and what has the best chances of being found, as you've seen it happen already.
Comment: how would you find out where you are?
Comment: Almost all artifacts exposed in museums have yet to be made. The first homo sapiens sapiens (our species) is still ~65 million years away. It is doubtful you could even reach a historical site in your lifetime, assuming you didn't get thrown back in time with a solar-powered hovercar
Answer: Why not encode a joke (or something) into the junk DNA of a lifeform you knew would have its genome encoded in the future. Something so bizarre that it would attract attention.
Comment: Becuase DNA that's not used for a purpose will quickly mutate and be quite scrambled in that span of time.
Comment: I think you're overestimating mutation rates. How about some crocodile DNA? - 200 million years.  And we share 50% of a banana's DNA. There's a fair lump that seems fairly immutable in Eukaryotes. But I'd defer to a lesser dilettante.
Answer: Assume your traveler bumped in the year 1999 (65m years before his original time).
What he can do to ensure his identity maintains for years and people of his time get to know his identity?
Short Answer:

Be Like Nostradamus!

Long Answer:
The traveler can sensationally opt to tell and share famous good or bad internationally known events which will occur after few years of 1999 BC. People of 1999 may not believe him until they see your first story coming true. Also the word "Sensationally" is important. People ought to remember things which are said in unique or unconventional ways.
For example: He tells people of 1999 about 9/11/2001 attack in NY something like this:

*Five and forty degrees, the sky shall burn:
To the great new city shall the fire draw nigh.
With vehemence the flames shall spread and churn
When with the Normans they conclusions try.*

(Source of these lines)
And in 2001 when the incident happens, you can start your marketing and publicity in full swing (indirectly via your devotees or friends of course). People will record and publish your predictions (stories) and will continue to pass on the same if the incidents he chose to tell actually kept on occuring in consecutive times.
I am sure, a future citizen of 65m years away may not even know about something that happened on 9/11/2001 but I am sure that few events stays in history textbooks for thousands of years. Take old scriptures and religious transcripts.
Your traveler can even inscribe your stories in monuments and such buildings which are mostly restricted or protected and have potential to stay for years. Even if these monuments gets damaged, their photos, transcripts and literature will be kept for future people to show them how their "ancestors" way of architecting was artistic (like Big ben or The Taj Mahal)
And if not textbooks or monuments, use people and generations to pass on your stories (and most importantly your identity which at some point of time will reach the right year to target person).
I bet metals and monuments may not stay for such a long time but folklore and literature does
Comment: I highly doubt anyone would even remember what 9/11 was in next 1000 years, not to mention 65m.
Comment: Yeah well for every Neil Armstrong there would be millions of dumbasses who will murk history "because it never happened, it's all fake, bla-bla-bla". The only facts that are immune to any kind of interpretation and/or drastic changes caused by new discoveries are math and maybe computer science. And these facts don't work that well with "Be Like Nostradamus!"
Comment: That was just an example. I am sure there must be several events which will always be remembered like first person who stepped moon, or something like that
Comment: I question both the logistics of trying to predict the future from so far in the past (we don't have exact dates for anything pre-history, at least, it's narrowed down to a decade, and in some cases, even less accurately)--not to mention the "and who are you going to tell?" problem--and the validity of the Nostradamus example (the Wikipedia page itself goes into plenty of detail on how the passage more accurately describes Naples in 1139).
Answer: The only evidence you need it your bones.
There's a chance, sure that you will corrode away and not fossilize, however there's also the chance that you will. The best way to do it, would be to die.
That way you have a chance for future archaeologists to dig you up :)


How should I wash Ventile clothing?

Question: My Ventile jacket is getting a bit dirty. Is there anything special I need to know when washing it, or will a regular washing liquid and low temperature do?
Answer: From ventile.co.uk:

Ventile can be either dry-cleaned as detailed below or hand washed
  using Grangers 30 Degree Cleaner

Professional dry-cleaning in: perchloroethylene, hydrocarbons. Mild cleaning process with stringent limitation of added humidity and/or
  mechanical action and/or temperature. Commercial stain removers on a
  solvent base may be used with some restrictions. A trail on a
  concealed part of the article is advisable beforehand.
We recommend hand washing  in Grangers Pure Liquid  Soap for Ventile , using the following procedure :

Gently brush or sponge off any dirt or grit.
Close the zip fastener
Turn the garment inside out
Hand wash in Grangers Pure Liquid Soap for Ventile.
Ensure all residue soap is removed from the garment, re-rinse if necessary.
Re-shape the garment on a hanger and allow to dry naturally avoiding direct  sunlight.
Iron carefully on a warm setting – this reactivates the DWR treatment.
Comment: Hi Mr. Wizard. At least in my browser, these links are both dead. They do lead to the Ventile site, though, so perhaps you can find where on the site the information can be found, and replace the links. Thanks.
Comment: This is an excellent example of why we discourage link-only answers. Even if the links are dead and not replaceable, the answer still has useful information.

How should I wash Ventile clothing?


Is Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters a narcissist?

Question: The scientist Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) from Ghostbusters has a very interesting personality, he is always flirting with female clients and is more laid back it seems than the other Ghostbusters.  While he is very snippy and cynical would it be correct to consider his character in the movie a narcissist?
Answer: I think the answer to that would be no. Narcissism is a serious psychological disorder. The symptoms, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders include:

Reacting to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation
Taking advantage of others to reach their own goals
Exaggerating their own importance, achievements, and talents
Imagining unrealistic fantasies of success, beauty, power, intelligence, or romance
Requiring constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
Becoming jealous easily
Lacking empathy and disregarding the feelings of others
Being obsessed with oneself
Pursuing mainly selfish goals
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Becoming easily hurt and rejected
Setting goals that are unrealistic
Wanting "the best" of everything
Appearing unemotional

Narcissists can be quite sadistic in their need to elevate self by putting others down. Venkman had some ego issues, but he was not without empathy - he bonded with his team and he did develop a relationship. The audience liked him. A narcissist does not make a likable character.
Comment: Does Venkman exhibit any other signs pointing obviously to a disorder?
Comment: Just because our "patient" does not exhibit _all_ the symptoms of the disorder, does not mean he could not exhibit _some_. And _some_ combination of symptoms (of different significance and persistence) is needed for diagnosis. Ideally, we would need someone (some two, actually: at least two independent psychologists are necessary) qualified to actually diagnose.
Comment: My fiancée, health science major with psych minor (not qualified to diagnose) wrote a term paper similarly analysing title character from _Good Will Hunting_, and while she cannot remember Venkman's character right now, and _Ghostbusters_ is not a movie with a focus on mental disorders like _Good Will Hunting_, _What About Bob?_ or _A Beautiful Mind_ etc., stated that while older movies sometimes tended to be all over the map with throwing often conflicting symptoms, _Ghostbusters_ crew was still meant to be a bunch of weirdos (they busting bloody ghosts after all).
Comment: A flat cardboard cut-out of one-dimensional dupe does not make a likeable character also. Maybe clumsily, but authors may well wanted to present a somewhat complex retinue of somewhat dysfunctional blokes.
Answer: I'm going to say, Possibly.  Maybe not intentionally, but I think at that period in Bill Murray's career, when he was at the top of his game, most of his characters exhibited the same type of personality.  His acting really was pretty one-dimensional, almost like Keanu Reeves.  Murray was the lovable loser with the big ego, always ready with a funny quip.  He was the same guy in Stripes and all the other movies in that time period, when you think about it.
Since most of his characters were pretty identical, it's safe to say that much of Murray's self is portrayed in those characters.  And he probably was a bit narcisstic at that point in his career as a rising star.  Maybe he didn't exhibit all of the signs, but there were almost definitely some narcisstic traits evident.
Comment: That was (had to be) a very narcissistic period for Murray. Coming off the (almost) instant recognition of his comedic talent on SNL, he was hounded by fans and producers alike. He was on the in of Hollywood elite at the time, with everyone constantly reaffirming his status. IMO, Groundhog day was the turnaround movie that would have seen him committing suicide or heading into obscurity, until his career renovation later on. (John) Belushi committed suicide shortly after Continental Divide (not saying the two are necessarily related, mind you) and Bill hit obscurity, for the most part.
Answer: Full of himself, yes. He's the common english/slang use of Narcissist, but not the clinical use.
And even that's contentious, as there is opposing views on Narcissistic Personality Disorder being a valid issue, if NPD should be folded into a broader category, or if it should stay as it's own diagnosis. (2010 arguments over the DSM 5 changes to Personality Disorders).
But the simplest way to see if Venkman fits the NPD diagnosis is the 5 point test:

The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, the following criteria must be met:

A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:

Impairments in self functioning (a or b):

a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.
b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.

AND Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):

a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the
  feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.
b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others" experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:

Antagonism, characterized by:

a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert;
  self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.
b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.

C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual"s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.
D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual"s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual"s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.
E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual"s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).

Generally, Venkman does not suffer from identity issues, is confident in his self-direction (until his funding gets cut, then he quickly moves on to loftier goals), and has no issues with Empathy or Intimacy. See his relationship with Dana Barrett, both before and after they break up.
He does have some Antagonism issues, but nothing that's overly aggressive (and he's always right, so he's not making things up). His personality is pretty consistent, but both of that's normal for a 1980s New Yorker (his socio-cultural environment). Drugs and injuries are not a factor here.
But the biggest thing is that none of his personality impairs his interactions. He's a fully functional, normal adult male with mostly stable friendships, business relations, and romances.


How many confirmations to be sure a transaction does not end up in an orphaned block?

Question: After how many confirmations can I be sure that my transaction is not in a losing chain that ends up orphaned?
Answer: Leaving aside the fact that "sure" is a subjective concept...
The network uses 10 blocks and 60 blocks to unlock monero coming from a user transaction, and a coinbase transaction, respectively. These provide guidelines as to what the Cryptonote creators thought to be reasonably safe values.
You could also look at what number of confirmations exchanges require. Kraken uses 15 confirmations, for example (http://blog.kraken.com/post/155126375697/kraken-launches-monero-trading).
For clarity, there is no such thing as 100% sure. All you can do is estimate a probability and error bars.
Comment: In this case, I believe they just set the number to match the time they use for Bitcoin (half an hour for both). As for the probability of a 10 block reorg, I can't give you an idea. It sounds pretty unlikely in the normal course of things, but if a deep pocket attacker (ie, Google, NSA, someone throwing lots of money at Amazon servers...) were to want to 51% the coin, it seems plausible in theory. I'd be interested to see an estimation of the probability myself :)
Comment: Since Kraken requires 15 confirmations, does that mean there is a significant probability of a block getting orphaned after 10 confirmations or are the probabilities very low and kraken is being over zealous?


Can someone die before her fixed time due to medical fault

Question: For example say, someone is taking care of a patient and he mistakenly gave wrong treatment to his patient. If that patient dies for that reason, can we say that the patient died before her fate death came due to the mistake of the patient's attendant?
Comment: Try to use more clear words, and also try adding what you have researched. This question is too vague.
Answer: No.
The question answers itself.
If her death is fixed due to medical fault then she would pass away due to that reason. That she would die due to medical fault is blotted for her.
Otherwise the word fixed would not bear any meaning. So, no one can die before or after.
This is a part of belief for the Muslims. A believer must believe in it that whatever that comes at his way is blotted for him; which we call fate.

وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَمَاتَ وَأَحْيَا
That it is He Who granteth Death and Life; [53:44]
Answer: No. At first, how do you know that the time for death was some another time in the future? Nobody can know when anybody will die, nor their future, nor their fate. We can say only the time of death, after death has occured. By definition, the time of death is when somebody died, which we can only know after death. We don't know fate, thus we can't argue that the real time of death is different from the time of death in the fate.


Logarithm of products in $\mathbb{C}$

Question: For arbitrary $z_{1}, z_{2} \in \mathbb{C}$ $\log(z_{1}z_{2}) \neq \log(z_{1}) + \log(z_{2})$. What is the largest subset of $\mathbb{C}$ such that we do have equality? Is it just $\mathbb{R}$?
Answer: For questions like this it is often helpful to write $z_1 = r_1e^{i\theta_1}$ and $z_2=r_2e^{i\theta_2}$. Then
$$z_1 z_2=r_1r_2e^{i(\theta_1+\theta_2)}$$
Now we bring in our requirement of equality
$$\begin{align}\operatorname{Log}(z_1z_2)=&\operatorname{Log}(z_1)+\operatorname{Log}(z_2)\\
\log(r_1r_2)+\Theta i=&\log(r_1)+\theta_1i+\log(r_2)+\theta_2 i\\
\Theta=&\theta_1+\theta_2
\end{align}$$
Where $\Theta=\theta_1+\theta_2 \pm 2\pi$ as necessary to keep it within $(-\pi,\pi].$ The answer should now be clear, the subset of $\mathbb C$ where this equality will hold is $\{re^{i\theta}:\theta\in(-\frac \pi 2,\frac \pi 2]\}\subset\mathbb C$, since within this subset we will not need to add or subtract $2\pi$. Any larger subset would lead to a counterexample.
Answer: Also note that whatever your set may be, for the logarithm to have an analytic determination, $z$ must be in a simply connected domain and have $f(z)$ non-vanishing there (though I imagine you could patch together a multiply connected domain with agreeing branches, but bounded by the above conditions.

Logarithm of products in $\mathbb{C}$


What is the minimum diameter for Power over Ethernet?

Question: There are different PoE standards like 802.3af, 802.3at (PoE+) and 802.3bt (announced for 2017). In some articles I found the information that "CAT5e" is the minimum requirment for 802.3at. But "CAT5e" has no requirement for the wire diameter itself. So what diameter is needed to support the different PoE standards in which length without getting problems?
Comment: It depends on distance. A longer cable will need larger wire. Denser bundles (rack/building distribution) will need larger wire due to the accumulated heat of multiple cables.
Comment: Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could post and accept your own answer.
Answer: As I know the main problem of transporting power over ethernet cables is temperature rise and resistance.
802.3af defines the max power as 12.95 W and max current as 350 mA over 2 pairs.
802.3at defines the max power as 25 W and max current as 600 mA over 2 pairs.
For both of them the typical wire (24 AWG) supports the temperature rise.
Lower diameters as 26 AWG and 28 AWG increases the resistance, so they are not recommended beside that the temperature rise increases also.
802.3bt will define the max power as 96 W and max current as 1000 mA over 4 pairs. For the moment there are not official documents stating the max temperature rise allowed.
Check this document that goes deeper than my explanation.


Root barrier suitable for organic vegetable garden

Question: My neighbor has a line of tall arborvitaes next to my vegetable garden and I'm getting invaded by the roots. I think I need to install a root barrier. The products I see are generally reprocessed polypropylene type 5 plastic for the hard ones, and high density polyethylene (HDPE) type 2 plastic for the more flexible rolls. Fabric barriers won't hold up. Are these plastics bad for use in organic gardens? Any ideas for a safer barrier? I was thinking maybe metal roofing, but they're probably treated with chemicals and I question using metals. Seems like there are no good options short of cutting the damn things down in the middle of the night :)
Thanks
Answer: I use aluminum flashing as a root barrier between my yard and my neighbors' yards, installed directly under my fence. This can have sharp edges, which is why it's under the fence. Works great, except when something tries to climb over the top.
As far as I know, there are no chemical treatments on the aluminum (I've never seen residue of any kind or noticed any smell whatsoever). It comes in 50 or 100 foot rolls, with widths up to 14 inches (I tend to like the 8" width) and is relatively inexpensive.
For installation, I would actually back the flashing with bricks or concrete pavers on the side towards the arb, This serves two purposes - to protect the flashing from being crushed by foot traffic/lawn movers and to prevent you from cutting your hands on any exposed edges. You install the pavers after the flashing. You'll also need some of the same spikes that roofers use to install rain gutters (1 spike for every three feet of flashing "run").

Use a flat spade to cut a V-trench
Install the flashing about 1/4-1/2" below the top of the soil.
After you've finishing installing the flashing, hammer the spikes into the flashing at a parallel to the soil surface. You need the spikes to secure the flashing in place and prevent frost-heave (maybe every 3 feet or so).
Backfill the trench and tamp down the soil next to the flashing.
After a couple of days (and a good rain or watering to settle the soil), install the pavers by digging a shallow, flat trench up against the flashing and dropping them into place. I'd keep them a little higher than soil level, but that's up to your own preference.

You now have a solution that should last just about forever.
Comment: Thanks. Sounds like a good solution, I'll give that a try. One question though about the spikes. I think you mean hammer them through the flashing parallel to the surface. 90 degrees would be perpendicular, vertical/up-down to the soil surface.
Comment: Yeah, you're right about the spikes; and to think that I used to be good at geometry. I've edited the post accordingly. If this works for you, please upvote and accept the answer so that the question is catalogued properly on the site. If it doesn't, please let me know via a comment. Thanks!
Comment: I dug a trench around the inside of my garden and installed 14" aluminum roll flashing as advised. Digging an even trench was really tough as the soil is very rocky here in the northeast. I came across a rock too big to dig out, but it was pretty easy to cut out the shape of the rock from the bottom of the flashing. I ended up using long gutter screws rather than spikes and it worked really well. I was surprised just how well the screws grabbed in the dirt and pulled in the flashing. Worked great.
Comment: I think this should be a great solution. I had some really deep roots, but the 14 inch flashing should hold back the great majority of them. I won't know until next year when I till the soil again in the spring, but I confident this will work.


Is there an increased risk of nonce reuse when using GCM with a nonce more than 96 bits?

Question: GCM is designed to use a 96-bit nonce, which can be generated either randomly or deterministically. If you use a nonce that isn't 96 bits then it is padded and hashed with GHASH to create a pseudorandom nonce (and block counter) instead. For example, suppose that you generated uniformly random 128-bit nonces, these would be hashed with GHASH and converted into a 96-bit nonce and 32-bit random block counter. Given that GHASH is not collision resistant, is this significantly more likely to result in nonce reuse than generating a random 96-bit nonce directly?
Comment: Does the answers to this question [AES-GCM recommended IV size: Why 12 bytes?](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/41601/18298) satisfy you?
Comment: No, although the Bootnote at the end of [this answer](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/66500/26028) is along the lines of what I'm asking. I'm specifically interested in how the (lack of) collision resistance of GHASH impacts the chance of reuse - collisions can be constructed, but are they likely to occur by chance? And weighing that against the fact that it also randomizes the block counter so in effect you get a larger nonce size.
Answer: If you insist on random nonces, 128 bit random nonces are safer than 96 bit random nonces (but not as good as 96 bit counter-based nonces - I presume that is infeasible in your scenario).
The 128 bit random nonce is transformed (via GHash) into what is effectively a 96 bit nonce and a 32 bit counter; in the 96 bit case, the 96 bit nonce is used directly, and we use a fixed 32 bit counter value value $1$.  If this (96, 32) bit value is $(X, Y)$, then an encryption of an $N$ block message uses the values $(X, Y)$ through $(X, Y+N+1)$ (and the addition is done modulo $2^{32}$)
Now, GCM runs into trouble if either a used range contains the value $(0, 0)$ (which can't happen with 96 bit nonces), or two separate encryptions (with their nonces) use a value in common.
As for the first possible case (using a value $(0, 0)$ somewhere in the range), that happens with probability $2^{-128}(N+2)$ for an $N$ block message - obviously, 96 bit nonces are better there.
As for the second possible case (using two ranges that interest), 128 bit nonces are clearly better.  After all, for two ranges to interest, they must share the same $X$ component; for 96 bit nonces, that is sufficient; for 128 bit nonces, the $Y$ components also need to intersect, and unless $N$ is near the maximum, that has a probability less than 1.
If we model the prohibition on the $(0, 0)$ value as a single message that just happens to use that single value, then that falls in line with the 'no two messages can use intersecting ranges'.  Then, it is easy to see that encrypting $M$ messages with 128 bit random nonces must be at least as secure as encryption $M+1$ messages with 96 bit random nonces, and actually, because of the observation that two 128 bit nonces that happen to map to the same 96 bit space will generally not intersect, it is actually considerably better.
In addition, you claimed that GHASH was not collision resistant, and Woodstock claimed that GHASH output was likely not uniform.  Actually, if $H \ne 0$, then with 128 bit inputs, GHASH is a permutation, hence it is collision resistant, and the output is uniform.
Comment: @NeilMadden: actually, the 0 bits and the nonce length is fixed; what we have is, if $X$ is a 128 bit value, then $GHASH(X) = H^2 \cdot X + C$ (where $H$ is the internal GCM value, and $C = H \cdot 128$, which is a key dependent constant.  If $H \ne 0$, this is a permutation.  And, if $X || Y$ is a 256 bit value, then $GHASH(X || Y) = H^3 \cdot X + H^2 \cdot Y + C$; if $X, Y$ are random, this is also uniformly distributed (again, if $H \ne 0$); not any worse, but also not any better...
Comment: Thanks, that's a useful answer. I picked a 128-bit random nonce fairly arbitrarily, as a size somebody might pick based on the block size. If the random nonce was significantly larger than 128 bits, would that impact the collision resistance and/or uniformity of the output of GHASH?

My claim that GHASH is not collision-resistant is based on [this answer](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/32575/26028) that shows how to calculate collisions for a known/fixed H. Does that impact the chance of random collisions for larger nonces? Apparently not for the case of 128-bit exactly.
Comment: @NeilMadden: I can't think of any reason you'd use a random nonce larger than 128 bits; it gets mapped to a 128 bit in the end, and the output wouldn't be precisely uniform (although it would be close).  In any case, collision attacks against GHASH assume the collider knows the value of $H$ (which a random nonce generator would not), and in any case, requires multiple blocks (and a 128 bit nonce fits in one).
Comment: Also, when the nonce (IV) is 128 bits then it will be padded with 64 zero bits and then the nonce length as a 64-bit integer before being hashed, so the input to GHASH will be 256-bits in that case and not a permutation.
Comment: PS this isn't purely academic. I am reviewing a bit of code that uses 256-bit random nonces with GCM


Is the local group bound to the Virgo cluster?

Question: The Virgo Cluster is currently red-shifted by 0.003 according to Wikipedia; this indicates that the cluster is expanding. Will the cluster's enormous gravity eventually "win" and pull the milky way/local group back toward itself, or will our current recessional velocity combined with dark energy cause us to recede off to infinity?
Answer: It would seem so. The local group is part of the Virgo cluster and as such is considered to be gravitationally bound. Although the Virgo cluster and the local group are currently moving apart, the mass if the Virgo cluster will likely slow and reverse the recession over time, with the local group ultimately merging with the cluster.
References:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/V/Virgo+Cluster
http://heasarc.nasa.gov/docs/cosmic/local_supercluster_info.html
Comment: However, this says no: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0204249
Comment: @Kevin that seems to be considering the effects of endless expansion (as opposed to bang/crunch). Of course in such a universe the local group would become isolated; in even more distant times even the components of the local group would drift apart. Expansion will tear apart all gravitational bonds given enough time. The original question was in regard to gravitational binding.
Comment: No dark energy does not grow with time (no "phantom energy"). Dark energy is constant but matter dilutes, thus we say dark energy will "dominate" the future universe. However, structures dense enough now to resist expansion are stable (until some internal mechanisms, such as proton decay, destroy them in the FAR future), "Brooklyn is not expanding".
Comment: The confusing part is that there seems to be a gravitationally bound Virgo cluster, of which we are not part, and a gravitationally unbound Virgo supercluster, of which we are part.


Order confirmation email with html content?

Question: I'm using drupal commerce with its submodules and need to change order's confirmation message to html format and add line items and customer profile. How can I organize this?
Answer: Use Commerce Message. It's the best supported way to handle sending emails. It includes several message types out of the box.
Answer: If HTML emails are a requirement, check out the Commerce Invoice Receipt module. Here's an excerpt from the project page:

Provides an additional 'Invoice' display for Commerce orders, as well as a Rules action to email this invoice out to customers.
  The HTML email can be customised through template files.


How to add our own routing data from postgresql into osm2po graph

Question: Is there any way to convert data from a PostgreSQL noded table into an osm2po graph? this library is able to read pbf data and generate a graph from osm data but If I want to update roads data it is not possible. I can update a PostgreSQL database which contains osm data but have no idea if it is possible to deploy them into an osm2po graph?
Answer: I'm sorry it's not. osm2po is a chain of many conversion steps. The generated postgres table is only one of many.
However, technically osm2po is prepared for custom sources. But this has to be implemented per use case and input format individually.
Comment: thanks very much. so it is possible to write some kind of input plugins for osm2po?is there any examples how to write them?I think it would be possible to write readers for postgresql tables
Comment: yes. new input formats (if custom or not) are welcome.
The crucial interface is `OsmParser`. Once there is an implementation you can declare it in the config (one line), so it will be used instead of the default..
Comment: Thanks very much. I'll look at it and check it I can implement a new input format. thanks


Round / Around and USE OF EVER

Question: these small pieces have been going round the sun ever since.
 according to above context , could someone help me understand:
1) what is the difference between round and around? also
2)why ever is used in the above sentence?
Comment: It's generally recommended that you want a bit before accepting answers. I'm not saying your accepted answer is wrong, but first answers aren't always correct. See [here](http://meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/1307/not-so-fast-when-should-i-accept-my-answer) for more information.
Answer: "Round" and "around" are approximately equivalent, although round, or more properly 'round is more poetic.
Because "since" by itself leaves the reader/listener hanging. You could get a way with just

round the sun since.

but what's expected is either

round the sun ever since.

or

round the sun since then/that time.

"Since" indicates the beginning of a period. The astute reader/listener could figure out what that period is from previous context. But generally "ever" or "then" would be added to indicate explicitly what that period is.
Answer:
Going round the sun
Going around the sun

Just about the same meaning, in this context: orbiting. Somehow around feels slightly more formal, but we often can use either word when describing motion.
As a UK English speaker I feel comfortable using either of these phrases

I went round the corner to the bookshop
I went around the corner to the bookshop

I believe that in the US around is more commonly used.
The work round does have other meanings such as "a round of golf" and also "King Arthur had a round table" here around does not work.
There are also specialised uses of around

I get around

meaning that I travel quite a lot, here round would not work; it's a rather idiomatic expression. However just to sow additional confusion the Beach Boys do sing:

Round, round get around, I get around ...

this I think shows how closely related the two words are.
As for ever since, it's a somewhat idiomatic expression, widely used.
The general idea is of unceasing action started at some point in the past. The planets began to orbit the sun and once started have never stopped. We use since to refer to some particular time in the past, in your example there will have been some earlier explanation for how the "small pieces" were formed and began to orbit. Considering the time since that event, the pieces have been continuously orbiting they have been orbiting

ever since
Comment: You might add that the Beach Boys tune includes both around and round in the lyrics.
Comment: Yes, I really should have done that ...

Round / Around and USE OF EVER


Does 'Provides equity' mean they are going to pay you?

Question: I recently applied for a job that in the Posting said 60,000 - 90,000 (Provides equity). I have Gotten past the first two interviews and am heading for my third this Friday. During the interview process they said multiple times that they were a start up. I'm worried that they aren't going to pay me a salary, just a percentage of what they make, is this true?
Comment: You should probably ask them, not us.
Comment: The way I read that is "We will pay you 60k-90k *plus* shares in the company.
Comment: it could be that they may have trouble to pay salary on time, or that they expect you to do a lot of extra hours, or quite a lot of things that we can find in start-ups usually. We can't read their mind.
Comment: Ask them clearly. However, if you are really interested in the job, accepting to be paid with Equity is showing that you trust the start-up to grow in the future years, and is a positive sign for the employer. Refusing to be paid, at least in part, in equity, could be seen as a lack of interest for the company's growth.

Ask them to clarify how much cash you will get, and the modalities to turn equity into cash, were you to need some.
Answer: You already kicked two interviews and you're scheduled for a third. Go for the job.

If you don't get the job, then the subject of compensation for the job is irrelevant.
If you do get the job, your prospective employer will have to put their offer including the compensation aspect in writing. At this point, everything about compensation should be clear to you.

They repeatedly said to you that they are a startup. It's probably translation for "we can't afford to give you the salary progression that you might expect". Keep your resume handy and up to date while you're working for them. If you choose to work for them, that is.
Reading your post, it's pretty clear to me that they'll pay you 60000-90000 and stock equity which has a 90% chance of turning into scrip given that 90% of startups fail. Whether you can afford to live on 60000-90000 is for you to determine.
Answer: "Equity" would mean that you will become owner of a (likely very small) share of the company. So if the company goes bankrupt, that equity is worth nothing. If the company gets sold for a ton of money, it will be a lot.
You will get a salary, and the equity will be on top of that. Your salary may be (likely will be) a bit less than you could get elsewhere, but you will be paid a fixed monthly salary. You will not get a percentage of the earnings. Many startup companies are sold before they manage to make money (if someone believes there is the potential to make money).
Comment: Many more startup companies simply fail and close down.
Answer: Equity is typically in the form of stock options.  When they go public you can exercise your options at a set price that is hopefully lower than the public price.
Outright equity is not always a good thing and then you would have part of the debt if they are in debt.
Check with the company.  A salary and stock options is pretty common with a startup.
And you need to be careful as they could award you 20,000 stock options at $x and end up awarding too many that they do a reverse split and your 20,000 options become 2,000.
Stock options are also a tax advantage to the company.
Comment: Equity as stock options is generally only for publicly traded companies.

Review the compensation section of your agreement carefully.  Consult an attorney if you're confused in any way.  $300 for them to review it can make tens of thousands in difference later.
Comment: @WesleyLong I am been with two startup and both were stock options.  That  is common for pre IPO.   Once a company is public you it is more common to award actual stock but with a vesting period.
Answer: Did they ever say that statement about being a startup in relation to salary. Because there might be plenty of reasons for people there to mention it. Most commonly it's mentioned to prepare you for the hectic state the company is in while trying to find a form of survival.
Eventually you will receive an actual contract proposal that will explain your and also their responsibilities. This should make your salary obvious and you are always free to decline it when it does not feel right.
Answer: Usually, postings like this - if they're mentioning equity that soon - mean they're paying less than market rates, and want to entice you with the idea of the option of being a part-owner.  The stock options game has been done to death with startups - it's high risk, and because it's only options, you have no say so if the company leadership torpedoes any chance of those options ever paying out.


How can I overcome the breathing trouble while meditating and increase concentration?

Question: At  certain point of meditation,I feel like I can't breathe properly as in the beginning of meditation(lose of oxygen) and thus I stop meditating and try to get oxygen into my brain.
I do no know why this is happening or how to overcome this condition.
Is that not a correct way of meditating? Or what am I doing is wrong ?Or do I have to push through?
Answer: It is difficult to answer your question due to not many facts. However, the impression is you are suppressing your mind or pushing your forehead down into your body; making your mind & forehead/forebrain rigidly still; and, at the same time, pushing your air/breath/outbreathes out; clenching your jaw & emptying the lungs & nostrils of breath.
In Buddhist meditation, the face should be relaxed and the mind/brain bright, awake & open. The Buddha taught to start meditation by establishing awareness in front of one's face. Possibly do some practise keeping your eyes gently open and keeping your face & jaw relaxed. Buddhist meditation is the practise of "non-attachment" rather than forceful suppression.
It is probably best to visit a Buddhist/meditation centre and talk to a teacher.
Answer:
Just before the nimitta appears, a lot of yogis encounter difficulties.
  Mostly they find that the breath becomes very subtle and unclear; they
  may think the breath has stopped. If this happens, you should keep your
  awareness where you last noticed the breath, and wait for it there.
A dead person, a foetus in the womb, a drowned person, an unconscious
  person, a person in the fourth jhāna, a person in the attainment of cessation (nirodha·samāpatti), and a brahmā: only these seven types of person do
  not breathe. Reflect on the fact that you are not one of them, that you are
  in reality breathing, and that it is just your mindfulness which is not
  strong enough for you to be aware of the breath.
When it is subtle, you should not make the breath more obvious, as the
  effort will cause agitation, and your concentration will not develop. Just
  be aware of the breath as it is, and if it is not clear, simply wait for it
  where you last noticed it. You will find that, as you apply your mindfulness and wisdom in this way, the breath will reappear.

Knowing and Seeing (Fourth Revised Edition) Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw
Answer: How do i avoid this and not lose concentration
Some instructions suggest that concentration is developed gradually -- for example the article Calm Abiding describes three stages, starting "with external support" and then "internal support" etc.
Instructions don't tell you to stop breathing.
Some instructions tell you to be aware of the breath -- notice whether the breath is long or short.
at a certain point in meditation i feel like i cant breathe (lose of oxygen)
If I ever feel I can't breathe or "I forget to breathe" then I breathe out (exhale, blow out) -- after that the body will breathe in.
I think that the body is meant to be able to breathe by itself i.e. without "my" help, it's that "I" shouldn't try to stop that.
It sounds like you might be attaching to a specific point in the breathing cycle and wanting to prolong that moment, instead perhaps you should allow that point to happen again and again as the breathing cycles -- i.e. "continually" (again and again) not "continuously".
Answer: It's impossible to lose consciousness through meditation in the way you're describing.  Your reptilian brain simply won't allow you to not breath for any length of time.  Just let go.  Don't force your breath.  Your body is going to take what air it needs.
What you are running into right now is a mental obstacle, not a physical one.  Your body/mind is trying to act - trying to stay in control.  Don't let that happen.  Don't be taken aback if the next few breaths are sharp or jagged.  If you let go, they will taper off into more subtle inhalations.
I'd also second dhammadhatu's answer - you might be slouching.  Make sure your body is erect and relaxed.  Imagine someone hold you up by a loop that's attached to the top of your head.  The body just kinda hangs from that point.  Everything is in a perfect line from the top of your head to your coccyx.


Is there a way to get a Masters Degree in CS/IT in the USA while at the same time working part-time?

Question: As a family man currently settled in the Philippines, I want to further my Software Engineering career and success for my family (I want to do it along with my wife and baby as I don't want to miss his early years). Is there a way to get a Masters Degree in CS/IT in the USA while at the same time working part-time to sustain my family needs? I want to explore H1B as an opportunity in the future.
Answer: Working for the university you are attending in some limited capacity (say, <= 20 hours/week) is generally possible.
Comment: Which US visa will allow this sir to take my family together with me and allow me to work while taking part-time Masters Degree in the USA?
Comment: In addition, I suppose part-time study is permissible in H-1B status.  @youinc Student visas and H-1B visas both have provision for dependents.  For example, dependents of a J-1 visa holder can apply for J-2, and dependents of an H-1B holder can apply for an H-4.
Comment: You  have to be a full-time student if on a F-1 visa, so the part-time work will be in addition to a full course load. That's usually around 12 credit hours.