Is time empty of inherent existence?

Question: My understanding of dependent origination is that it asserts that all things are empty of inherent existence. On an intellectual level I can appreciate and accept this however I struggle when it comes to time. Is time included in this? Is it dependent on something else and if so what kind of things are conditions for time? In my mental picture of the world time is kind of a backdrop for everything else but clearly this mental picture conflicts with dependent origination.
Answer: Ultimately, Time exists only conceptually, i.e. as a mental formation. Thinking about past, present and future are mental events, happening in the present moment.
We live only for one thought-moment at a time (momentary death).
The mind might be chasing after some object or running away from another object but that also takes place in the present moment, thus we are always in the present moment.
Conventionally, we can speak of Time as existing and exercising some kind of control over beings in conditioned existence. That can be seen in the workings of Kamma. Kamma is fourfold and one of its classifications are called "Time of Ripening"1, i.e. when the kamma is coming into fruition.
There are actions that might produce their effects in this very life, they are called Immediately-Effective-Kamma.
There are actions that might produce their effect in a subsequent life, they are called Subsequently-Effective-Kamma.
Then there are actions that might produce their effects in any life as long as one is in the conditioned realm, they are called Indefinitely-Effective-Kamma.
As seen here Time exists conventionally, as do beings and rebirth, since they are merely concepts, conventions and designations. Ultimately though, these concepts are not findable or inherently existing. In other words they fall under the doctrine of Emptiness (Śūnyatā).
To further illustrate the difference between Conventional and Ultimate reality let's take a look at a quote from the Milindapañhā2 where King Melinda discuss Time with Ven. Nāgasena:

"Nàgasena, when you say, 'Time immemorial', what does time mean? Is there any such thing?"
"Time means past, present and future. There are some for whom time exists and some for whom it doesn't. Where there are beings who will be reborn, for them time exists; where there are beings who will not be reborn, for them time does not exist."
"Well put, Nàgasena, you are clever in reply."

As we see here Nāgasena explains that Time exists for beings that will be reborn, i.e. beings that are still wandering in the realm of Samsara.
Time does not exist for beings that will not get reborn, i.e. those who have won Nibbana.

1 Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Ch. 5: "Compendium of the Process-Freed", p. 201, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
2 The Debate of King Melinda, Ch. 2: "Rebirth", p. 47, by Ven. Bhikkhu Pesala
Answer: Understanding time is an important part of insight into the nature of things. How can you understand the empty nature of entities if you don't understand their relationship with time? How can you be free of self, of the dictate of the form, if you don't see beyond time?
In traditional literature this topic is famously addressed by the founding father of Japanese Zen, Master Dogen, in his essay U-ji - usually translated as "Being-Time" or "Existence-Time". While I would not give justice to it here by quoting or paraphrasing, here are my own limited glimpses of understanding:
Time is not a container. Entities do not "move" through time. Nor the time "moves" while entities "stay in place and age on". Instead, time is existence itself, time is not separate from the state of things. Because entities are empty they do not have an identity that would be retained and would pass from one moment of time to the next. That identity is a conceptual overlay. If you think of transformations like wood=>ashes or milk=>yogurt it becomes very clear. At what point does wood stop being wood and becomes ashes? At what point milk dies and yogurt is born?
...There cannot be such thing as time travel, because the notion of travel itself requires time for the travel to occur in. If you could skip through time, what time would that skipping occur in? Thinking in terms of entities moving through time is a deep-ingrained samsaric thinking.
All compound things exist in some configuration in one point in time, and in a different configuration in another point. Consciousness (awareness) exists as part of that same setup. It looks like it changes, but just like everything else, it just exhibits different configuration at different points in time-space. All phenomena exist as a web of connections across time and space.
Comment: "There cannot be such thing as time travel..." Exactly what I thought...
Comment: What if time travel is experiencing time faster than what it is now? There are scientific researches which seems to have found that small insects like mosquitoes have a rate of experience of time lesser (slower) than ours.. What if we could mystically alter the working of our brain/whatever to experience time slower or faster than what it is now?
Comment: 1) "Faster" requires a clock to measure the speed. 2) In this case experience of time and time travel are two different things. When you experience time "faster" you can't go back, so it's not "travel". 3) This is becoming an idle conversation so I'm inclined to not reply.
Answer: Time is merely the concept humans use when trying to apprehend impermanence. Time is the measurement of the rate of change of things around us that are appreciable to the scale of which we experience reality. All conditioned things being unable to maintain a constant form, and thus being in constant flux, give the appearance of "time", but there is no time as we conventionally think of it, only constant change, impermanence. Therefore, time is dependent on greed, anger, and delusion, a misapprehension of reality as it is.
Answer: I think this answer implies that (passage of) time depends on (two, separated in time) events.
For example 'the time elapsed between today and tomorrow' depends on 'today' and on 'tomorrow'.
Similarly maybe space (a.k.a. distance) depends on (two, separated in distance) objects.
See also this topic which suggests that there have been conflicting opinions/definitions about whether space is conditioned or unconditioned. An argument for its being called unconditioned is that it's eternal (I'm not sure what the word for "eternal" was, I wonder whether it was akalika i.e. timeless).
Comment: +1 so space-time is dependently originated at all. Sounds convenient with Einstein...
Comment: Yes, beware that I was taught Einstein's Relativity, so that affects my view: which might differ from a canonical or orthodox Buddhist view.
Comment: Funnily Einstein is referred in [another answer](http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/11255/461) as well...
Answer: The Buddha exclusively used the term 'dependent origination' to refer to twelve conditions that lead to suffering. Once you adhere to the Nagarjuna (Mahayana) view on 'dependent origination' (i.e., cause & effect or conditionality) there will be conflicts since conditionality & the idea of 'no inherent existence' is difficult to apply to all things.
The 'no-inherent-existence' ('emptiness' - 'sunnata') the Buddha was concerned with was the emptiness of 'self', i.e., 'egoism' (SN 35.85). The Buddha was not concerned with the 'no inherent existence' of time since time obviously does not have a 'self', 'ego' or 'personality view'.
Take the laws of nature (dhamma-niyama), which are conditionality, impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, not-self, emptiness, etc. If they lacked inherent existence then they would not exist. How could they be 'lawful'? Even the idea of 'no inherent existence' would have 'no inherent existence'.
The Buddha taught impermanent things naturally cannot be a 'self'. But this does not mean the opposite must apply, namely, permanent things must be a 'self'.
People often ask: "If all things are impermanent, is impermanence itself impermanent?" Naturally, this question is irrelevant since the Buddha only taught conditioned things are impermanent & never taught that impermanence is a conditioned thing. Thus it is reasonable to conclude impermanence is permanent; just as not-self/emptiness (anatta/sunnata) is permanent.
Answer: One has to understand that the texts referred to were written in the Iron Age in India. They were not very sophisticated in how they thought about the physical world. For example, they understood it to be made of just 5 elements: earth, water, wind, fire, space. There is no sophisticated discussion of time as a concept. Indeed in the West there is almost no sensible discussion of time until the Enlightenment. Our understanding of time was completely wrong until just a century ago, this year, when Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity.
It's simply unlikely that one will find any satisfactory explanation of time in traditional Buddhist texts.
To complicate things some people (Ñāṇavīra and Buddhadasa) have argued that the Buddha claimed that his dharma was akāliko and that this means that dependent arising cannot be understood in temporal terms. They use the building block approach instead: for example when the walls are present, the roof is able to stay up. When the walls are absent the roof does not stay up (it either cannot be put up or it falls down). The walls must precede the roof in sequence, but the argument is that this does not imply a temporal sequence. I don't find this entirely plausible.
Although the language allows us to talk about time as though it is an entity, this is philosophically untenable. Time is not a feature of the world, it's a feature of how we conceptualise sequences of experiences.
A modern argument would say that time is a Kantian a priori. Like causation, time, is simply a pre-existing concept we superimpose on experience when we observe sequences of events. Hawking argues that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. entropy increases over time) imposes an direction on time. We can always tell when a film is being played backwards partly because of how we understand causality and partly because of how we understand entropy.
But so what? What soteriological value does this knowledge have? What difference will it make to how you practice or relate to people. None that I can see. The fact is that most of don't need an abstract understanding of time in order to live. If you really want to understand time, then trying to do so in terms of a theory which only seeks to understand how experiences arise in awareness is never going to be very satisfying. There's not a bad description in Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time. Although it is not easy to understand.
I think perhaps that we would need to clarify the purpose of this question. What would one gain by an intellectual understanding of time that is rooted in an Iron Age worldview?
Answer:
Is it dependent on something else and if so what kind of things are conditions for time?

Time, like any other conditioned phenomena lacks an inherent existence for it also depends on various factors. There's a concept called time dilation from the theory of relativity which shows that time can stretch or shrink depending on the observers and their moving speed relative to each other or the different positions from a gravitational mass or masses.
Comment: +1 nice: Modern physics used to explain buddhism...
Answer: There is actually concrete scientific evidence that time is empty of inherent existence. This scientific evidence comes from the theory of relativity, together with something about relativity that Einstein himself had not realized. This is the fact that Einstein's second postulate of relativity — that the speed of light is constant relative to all inertial frames of reference — is not actually a fundamental law of nature but a consequence of the fact that we have defined time in accordance with how we experience the universe.
It is a scientific fact that the rate our body functions is governed by the rate of electromagnetic transmission, since all cells and all organs in our body function via electromagnetism. This means that if we use our conscious experience as the standard for defining our time, we have actually defined time by the rate of electromagnetic transmission, which is the speed of light. That is why the speed of light is always constant — we have actually defined it to be so!
What this means is that we have also defined time according to our conscious experience (which depends on the speed of light). That explains why, in relativity, time distorts depending on the observer's state of motion. Time is thus only an entity that is dependently arisen since it depends on the imputation of the mind that gives it the label "time." Time does not exist independent of the observer, and hence is empty of inherent existence from its own side. Without the observer, it does not even make sense to talk of time.
A more detailed explanation can be found in my article "Relativity Proves that Time and Space are Empty of Inherent Existence." http://kenneth-chan.com/physics/relativity-proves-time-space-empty-inherent-existence/. It is probably necessary to look at this longer explanation to fully understand what I am trying to convey. It is just not possible to explain things well in a short answer.
A more mathematical explanation of how time and space are derived from our conscious experience can be found in the paper "Time and Space." http://kenneth-chan.com/physics/time-and-space/ (This paper was refereed and approved for publication by Professor Kip S Thorne, who is a world authority on General Relativity.)
Please realise that this is concrete scientific proof that the Buddhist Madhyamaka teachings regarding time and space are correct. There are no speculative elements whatsoever in this proof; so even scientists will have to take it into account. Professor Kip S Thorne would not have approved the paper "Time and Space" for publication if the dramatic findings there were based on speculation of any kind.

Is time empty of inherent existence?


Senior Members Stealing Answers and Out-voting

Question: I've notice that Senior members rank higher when answering. Ideally this sounds like a good idea, however, I have had two experiences where a senior member has taken my idea rephrased it slightly and submitted it as his own. My answers received no votes, while a senior member due to their ranking gets credit for my solution.
Comment: can you provide specific examples, otherwise it's hard to understand what you mean.
Comment: in those three, there is only one case (2220879) where Mac's answer was posted before the high-scoring ones, and in that case, i'd say Alok's answer received a lot of votes because it was immensely more thorough.
Comment: It is two of the seven answers, http://stackoverflow.com/users/262230/mac
Comment: Without looking at the content it can be narrowed down to two of these four: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2166112, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2177935, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2220879 and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2436134.
Answer: One thing to bear in mind is that just because you've submitted your answer before someone else doesn't mean they've seen your answer before posting.
Quite often I've posted an answer only to see that someone else has already posted something similar. If my answer doesn't contain anything beyond theirs, I'll delete mine... if I think mine explains the same thing better, or adds extra information, I'll leave mine up. The poster of the first answer may think that I've "stolen" their answer - but in reality it's just two minds thinking alike, which should hardly be a surprise to anyone.
Comment: never attribute to malice that which can be explained through simple incompetence! :)
Comment: +1 - My thinking exactly... Started a few arguments on Superuser, but makes me feel a lot better reading that you do the same as me.
Comment: @Jeff: but whose?
Comment: I've had people steal my answer almost verbatim before... When that happens I can't help but attribute plagiarism to it.
Answer: I have seen that time, and time again. That the best answer (in my opinion) will get more up-votes than other answers, regardless of when they were posted.
Frankly, I sometime prefer to be the last person to the party. At that point, it doesn't matter how long you spend carefully crafting your answer. I have on some occasions taken hours to carefully craft an answer, that later ended up being the most up-voted answer. Quite often these answers will also become the accepted answer.
So my recommendation to you is to stop worrying about other users, and just make sure your answer is as good, as you can possibly make it.

Also if I come across similar answers by two users, one of which has very little rep, I will be more likely to vote on the one from the user with the lower amount of rep. Which is the opposite of what you say you are seeing.
Comment: I agree; I am actually more likely to vote for the lower-rep user if two answers are comparable in quality.
Comment: If the two answers are almost identical, the one that shows up first gets the votes.
Comment: @jeff, you shouldn't vote based on the author
Comment: @downvoter if the content is roughly the same, the only distinguishing characteristic IS the author. So, post better answers then. :)
Comment: @Jeff, the author isn't the _only_ distinguishing characteristic; what about timestamp? I'm not going to upvote an answer posted seven hours later that brings nothing new to the question, even if it's from a lower-rep user.
Answer:
I've notice that Senior members rank higher when answering.

Not true. Answers are sorted based on votes and the order of answers with similar vote count is randomized. There are more than enough cases that prove a low-rep member can easily outscore a high-rep member.

I have had two experiences where a senior member has taken my idea...

Note that there may be not a million best ways to accomplish something. Sometimes it's just a couple good ways to do something and you can never be sure that someone has taken your idea merely because it were there first. They may have reached the idea independently. Never ignore this possibility before accusing someone.

...rephrased it slightly and submitted it as his own.

Well, a rephrased answer is no longer identical to your answer, in which case, it's perfectly possible that a third party believes one is better than the other.

Yes, "answer stealing" is a problem and the order randomization has made the problem a little worse. This has been discussed to death in meta before and is by no means limited to people in a certain rep category.
That said, like many things in Stack Overflow and real life, there's not likely to be a 100% practical solution for some problems. Just ignore it and go on to your next question.
Answer: I briefly looked through all the answers you've given on SO so far.
Is it possible that other users provided better or more usable answers?
I'm sure you're trying your best to be helpful, which is great. A good answer often comes down to little things like code formatting, readability, and understandability. Try working on improving these things in your answers and I think you will see an improvement in your response rate.
Answer: The order of answers is not affected by reputation.
You make a bold accusation - are you sure your answer was copied? What is the time difference between the answers?
Answer: I agree that answers given by high-reputation users tend to be upvoted slightly more quickly and easily than those from others. That's often unfair, but it's human. At the end of the day, as far as I can see, the best answer still counts most on SO in most cases.
The suspicion of "stolen" answers I find unfounded. I can see nothing supporting that allegation. To most technical questions there is a limited number of possible solutions, and it is likely that people will come up with answers similar to yours. It happens to me, and I'm sure most people here, all the time.
Comment: I'm not even convinced that the upvoting of high-rep users is always unfair: correlation isn't causation, don't forget. Typically I find that high rep users can express the same idea in a more helpful way, which is how they've achieved high rep to start with. Even if there are two answers which give the same information, that doesn't mean the answers are equal in all ways...
Comment: @Jon true. Even with two identical answers, the one given by the more experienced person will inherently have more value because the person's full knowledge has tested it against possibilities the less experienced answerer maybe even doesn't know about. No doubt. What I mean is, when confronted with two answers both of which an onlooker doesn't *fully* grasp in all detail (the old "bike shed" scenario) there will be a slight tendency to accept the high-rep user's answer at face value more readily than that of the low-rep user. It has happened to me, shaming me later.


Hum or solfege for ear training

Question: I have a "Real Easy" ear training book and it uses solfege, but I have a real hard time with that. I use a guitar tuner app to check myself and I find I can hum much better than singing "do's",ect. Is this going to be a major hindrance to my ear training or can I replace one with the other as I make my way through the book ?
Comment: I've read that one should not hum for ear training, but I don't remember where or have any support for that. It does make up a part of some vocal warmups for singing. It is a very different process, mechanically, from singing, all things considered, and might not develop the same pitch sense.
Answer: The argument I heard as a student was that movable "do" allows you to make a mental association between scale degrees and solfege syllables.  After a lot of practice singing with solfege syllables, the syllables tend to start popping into your head as you hear a melody.  That gives you a way to fix those pitches in your mind and remember them, so that (for example), you can then transcribe the melody or play it on your instrument.
Answer: You asked:
"...can I replace one with the other as I make my way through the book?"
I think the answer is no.  Your book is using those syllables for good reasons; like Bruce wrote, they allow you to make a mental association among notes (whether your book uses movable "do" or fixed "do").  As you progress further in your book, I imagine those syllables will become more and more critical to the training contained within it.
Singing in syllables is not an intuitive skill.  It takes a great deal of practice in the beginning.  Stick with it, and get good at it.  There are huge benefits to being able to sing by syllables!  It may seem strange at first, but it will make sense later, so drink the "coolaid," so to speak, and have faith.
Comment: I think what is confusing is, if I'm using an app as a note meter, and I sing do, will the meter show sol as a perfect fifth if I am doing it right ?
Comment: You're using the tuner to help verify you're singing a perfect fifth?  Well, I'd do that by playing a "D" on an instrument, singing that, then singing the perfect fifth above, and checking with the tuner that you hit "A".  (Or, use some other notes, whatever's most comfortable for your voice.)  Or check by just playing the "A" and seeing whether it sounds like the same note as your voice.  But, anyway, this is the same process whether you sing with "Do, Sol", or "hum, hum", so I may not understand the question....
Comment: I don't recommend using a tuner.  Do you have a piano or keyboard?  If you need to, then use one of those.
Answer: When I went to school for music, my professor suggested we all use musictheory.net. They have a bunch of different excercises that help with ear training. I suggest atleast looking at it.
Comment: I tried humming. Once when I had a guitar  tuner at hand. I found out  that I'm humming or to flat or sharp. That's why in my opinion do as Mark says. Then your  sure, the pitch  is correct.

Hum or solfege for ear training


Hop Analysis for Home Brewers - Interest Poll

Question: My future stepson is growing hops this coming season here in WA state. I'm a chemist and am thinking of doing the hop analysis for him. I'd like to poll you all and see if there is much interest in having your homegrown hops analyzed. Talked to two local brewing suppliers and they seemed to think that there is growing interest among their home growers in knowing what the IBU's are in their hops. If this seems to be true (interest is increasing), then I'll probably make the investment and get my own instrument for the analysis. Please let me know what you folk think. Thanks in advance.
Comment: I approve of trying to assist in providing a service to homebrewers, however that's really not what I think this site is trying to be.  "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face" -the FAQ
Comment: There's one vote to close as "not a real question".  I think there's obviously an implied questions here (beyond the let me know what you think bit), but I'd recommend editing this to include a specific call-to-action at the end.  Maybe something along the lines of: Is anyone else interested in having their hops' IBU levels analyzed?
Answer: I've been considering growing hops myself (in Madison, WI) and depending on how successful I am with that, I'd potentially be interested in having an analysis done.


What class airspace is depicted in the magenta colored area southeast of the Lake Havasu City, Arizona AIrport?

Question: What class airspace is depicted in the picture below within the wide magenta colored bar southeast of the Lake Havasu City, Arizona Airport (on the Phoenix, Arizona Sectional Chart)?  What are the vertical boundaries of this airspace?
Answer: By the legend, that should be "Class E Airspace with floor 700 ft. above surface that laterally abuts 1200ft or higher Class E Airspace"
Answer: The airspace for KHII is defined per 74 FR 43029 as class E Sectionals such as skyvector show the area as shaded magenta. which means that this particular flavor of class E begins at 700' and extends to the class A.

That airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface within a 6.7-mile radius of Lake Havasu City Airport and within 1 mile each side of the Lake Havasu City Airport 150° bearing extending from the 6.7-mile radius to 13 miles southeast of the Lake Havasu City Airport, excluding that airspace with a 2.3-mile radius of Chemehuevi Valley Airport. That airspace extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface bounded by a line beginning at lat. 34°42′47″ N., long. 114°29′37″ W.; to lat. 34°42′47″ N., long. 114°12′06″ W.; to lat. 34°23′00″ N., long. 114°12′06″ W.; to lat. 34°17′19″ N., long. 114°32′12″ W.; thence to the point of beginning.

Note particularly

and within 1 mile each side of the Lake Havasu City Airport 150° bearing extending from the 6.7-mile radius to 13 miles southeast of the Lake Havasu City Airport

The rule says that the airspace was created for execution of RNAV approaches. Not sure why the 13 mile rectangle is required for RNAV approaches though.
Comment: @JWalters, that has been addressed.
Comment: @photoscientist - On the RNAV approach there is a tower, about 800 AGL tall approximate 8 miles from the end of rwy 32.  It's possible the approach designer considered this when constructing the extension.  This would ensure (theoretically) that a VFR aircraft passing above the tower in order to remain clear would be required to have 3 miles vis and meet cloud clearance requirements of controlled airspace (class E extension).  This would help protect the aircraft on the RNAV approach. Designers have some discretion in their decision making when building the approach and advising on extensions.


Frothing milk more quietly?

Question: I have a Mr. Coffee BVMC-ECM260 espresso maker. I'm kind of getting the hang of frothing it (i.e. I can make a decent cup of frothed milk) but every time it makes that loud "screaming" noise that I've seen others describe. I've tried different techniques, putting the wand in close to the surface, close to the bottom, etc. but it makes the same noise. I live in a small apartment building where the walls are very thin and making loud screaming noises with my espresso maker on a regular basis is not really ideal for me. Should I just go back to a drip coffee maker, or could there be a problem with the way I'm frothing the milk?
Answer: Try a magnetically stirred milk frother
They use a small jug sitting on top of a heating element, with a rotating magnet below the heater. A small magnetic stirrer dropped into the jug therefore spins, and froths the milk, nearly as well as a steamer does
The Nespresso one is crap

Frothing milk more quietly?


LINQ DynamicLibrary: How to extract count and list from IQueryable

Question: I have started experimenting a bit with the LINQ DynamicLibrary. I am trying to replace a bunch of LINQ statements with a few or just one Dynamic LINQ query. My existing static query is as follows:
private List<TicketChartData> GenerateImpl(IList<ServiceItem> myList)
{
    var output = from ticket in myList
             group ticket by ticket.Region into grouped
             orderby grouped.Count() descending
             select new TicketChartData(grouped.Key, grouped.Count(), grouped.ToList());
    return output.ToList();
}

As you see, my unit of work is ServiceItem.
This works all fine and gets me a result set grouped by Region. Using DynamicLibrary my attempt is to be able to group by any valid dynamic field (I will handle any validations separately). So, I tried writing the same query using DynamicLibrary, but am not very successful. Here is the new method which of course doesn't compile:
private List<TicketChartData> GenerateImpl(IList<ServiceItem> myList, string field)
{
    IQueryable<ServiceItem> queryableList = myList.AsQueryable<ServiceItem>();
    IQueryable groupedList = queryableList.GroupBy(field,"it").
                            OrderBy("Key descending").
                            Select("new (Key as Key)"); // Not what i need
    return output.ToList();
}

I have been unable to extract neither the Count nor the List from the grouping. How do I do this? I have spent considerable amount of time looking for a solution. If possible I want to be able to avoid using Reflection. I have had some pointers in this front at the following link, but it doesn't help my actual problem. Thanks in advance for any help.
System.LINQ.Dynamic: Select(" new (...)") into a List<T> (or any other enumerable collection of <T>)
Answer: For Count it can be written as following:
private List GenerateImpl(IList myList, string field)
{
    IQueryable queryableList = myList.AsQueryable();
    IQueryable groupedList = queryableList.GroupBy(field,"it").
                            OrderBy("Key descending").
                            Select("new (Key as Key, Count() as Count)");

    // Note: IQueryable doesn't have ToList() implementation - only IEnumerable
    return output.ToList(); // will not work
}

For List - possible you'll need to add your custom implementation to DynamicLibrary...
See how it was done for Contains() method here
Comment: Useful information. But does not solve the problem. If you carefully notice my query uses **GroupBy**. This is the distinguishing factor. GroupBy creates objects of _dynamic_ types which we cannot enumerate. GroupBy returns IQueryable whereas the other methods: select, where, orderby etc returns IQueryable where T is of the sourcetype.
Answer: A solution is to use the .QueryByCube LINQ extension method provided by my product AdaptiveLINQ.
Disclaimer: I'm the AdaptiveLINQ developer


Are any of the exchanges posted on site checked by anyone

Question: are any exchange sites on https://www.getmonero.org/community/merchants/#exchanges page verified
Answer: Please take notice of the disclaimer:

"Please note: these links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement by the Monero community of any products, services or opinions of the corporations or organizations or individuals listed. The Monero community bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality, or content of these external sites. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content. As always, caveat emptor ('buyer beware'); you are responsible for doing your own research. Always use judgement when making online purchases."


Where is the story of Radha being born blind found?

Question: In which scripture is the story in which Radha was originally born blind, and opened her eyes when she met Krishna found?
Comment: I have never heard this. Are you sure this actually a story?
Comment: It's my first time also.... After shridama's curse Radha wishes to see Krishna first on earth .
Answer: Padma Purana , Patala Khanda, Chapter 71 (5.71.29-31) describes that Vrishabhanu, the father of Sri Radha perceived her to be motionless, blind and deaf and requested the sage Narada to have a look at her.

Then, when the best sage, after having talked to the excellent
  cowherd, decided to go, Bhanu spoke to him like this: "O god, I have
  (also) a daughter, resembling the wife of a god. She is younger than
  this boy(Bhanu's son). Her form (i.e. she) is dull and blind and deaf. Prompted by
  the desire for her prosperity, I seek a boon from you, O most glorious
  one. By just casting a pleasing glance at the girl make her quite
  composed."

I heard that Narada advises Vrishabhanu to call all the cowherds announcing the birth of daughter. Nanda and Yashoda also arrived with Krishna. When child Krishna comes in front of Radha, Radha becomes active and opens her eyes. I don't have any reference for this though.


Why AVs reject miners?

Question: I have been trying to install miners on my windows, but mostly detected as a threat by AVs.
Why are most of the miners blocked by Antivirus programs?
Is there any miner which has no problem with Antiviruses?
Answer: I don't know of any AV software that doesn't detect miners.
If you want to know what you can do so that AV software doesn't detect a miner, take a look at my answer here
Answer: Miners are usually flagged by anti-viruses as people create malicious software to mine Crypto-Currencies on the owners computer without their knowledge, and your average user is unlikely to be mining Crypto-Currencies so all miners are flagged.
This doesn't usually affect serious miners as they don't install unneeded software and if using Windows have whether it be a registry edit or other method have disabled Windows defender.

Why AVs reject miners?


Merge Request: [wings-of-liberty] -> [starcraft-2]

Question: the wings-of-liberty tag exists separate to starcraft-2, and is only used on questions that have the Starcraft 2 tag anyway.
Comment: So... how is this an obvious merge, but the SF4 merge isn't...? http://meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/5554/lets-merge-tagstreet-fighter-4-and-tagsuper-street-fighter-4-to-tagstree
Comment: @Decency - I don't know much about SF4, but Aren't those different games though? With their own tactics, gameplay etc?
Comment: Other than some balance changes and new characters and stages added, they're entirely just updates of the same game. The first version and the current one are far more similar in gameplay than WoL and HotS are.
Comment: @Decency - As a layman to fighting/hand to hand combat games, from my perspective you just described sequels to that genre in general. Does that mean all sequels of a particular fighting game should be kept under one 'series' tag? A better example: what about AoE2 and AoE2HD?
Comment: SF4 is the sequel to SF3, which is the sequel to SF2. Much like StarCraft 2 is the sequel to SC1. SC1 and SC:BW are the same game using the same mechanics and game systems, much like WoL and HotS, much like SF4 and its half dozen varieties. Either way, conversation would be better kept in the other topic.
Comment: OK, well from Starcraft 2's perspective, HotS is an expansion, and cannot be played separately to WoL. Can the same be said about SSF4?
Answer: Sounds reasonable.
The large majority of "Wings of Liberty" questions would, by necessity, have to refer to either Wings of Liberty-exclusive maps, or achievements, which means that they could be appropriately identified by the map / achievement name alone, making the tag redundant.
I don't see a possible scenario where someone asks about the campaign and it is unclear whether they're referring to a WoL mission or a HotS mission.
Comment: I agree with the merge in this case, but I have an issue with your reasoning. The point of a tag isn't to make questions unambiguous. The title and body text should be doing that. The point of a tag is to make questions about certain things easier to find. By your logic we shouldn't ever have sub-tags, which can be very useful in the right circumstances.
Comment: @StrixVaria - Is that not where synonyms come in?
Comment: @Robotnik I mean something like minecraft-redstone is good to have as a separate tag from minecraft, because you can specifically be an expert in redstone. If you're looking for redstone questions you shouldn't have to sift through all the rest of the minecraft questions as well. I'm not sure what you're asking me.
Comment: @StrixVaria - oh yes, I get you now. At the same time I still reckon WoL and HotS should be grouped. However, multiplayer strategies and build orders would be a good thing to keep separate from single player/achievement questions in that case
Comment: @StrixVaria I might agree with a more broad "campaign versus multiplayer" (and I believe that may have already been discussed, in fact?), but the Wings of Liberty campaign hasn't *changed* as a result of HotS (like the multiplayer has).


I need to know what piano chords I am singing

Question: I am a songwriter but I do not play piano. I can pick my melody out with one finger, but that's it. Is there an app or some way to record myself singing a song and have it determine the piano chords for me?
Answer: Probably not yet,but in the future...
Problem is, given two or three notes from part of a melody may - or may not - fit to one chord. Often there are several choices, which is one reason most melodies can be, and are, particularly in jazz, re-harmonised. Nothing wrong with that, except the options grow in number as any melody progresses. A programmed app would have to be aware of all the options, and get pretty complicated to use. Or be simple and give 'cast-iron' harmonies which at best could be turbid.
As a songwriter, you know words and how they fit together, and know how to fit melodies to those words. You're more than half way there! And only you will know what actual chords you want to fit to those melodies.Right now, you may not know what a chord may be called, but I'm certain when you hear a particular chord over a particular line, you'll say yes or no to it.
Seems like the next step is to grab an instrument, probably a teacher, and explore possibilities of harmony. Piano or guitar are the best options, and will expand your palette exponentially, at the same time making you into a far far better writer.
Answer: Not really. To make a chord you need 3 or more (or at least 2) notes. An app may be able to transcribe the melody you're singing, but it will be up to you to choose the other notes to create a chord.
If you learn some basic chords, maybe enough to play a few songs in similar styles to the ones you want to write. then you should be able to make a decent start at building chord progressions.
Answer: If you are able to write lyrics and melody, you have written  your song. Harmony (chords) actually fall into the category of arranging the song for performance. If you are not a musician you have the option of studying to become one, or finding another musician who can help you develop your song. Another option is to look for an educated arranger who can make short work and turn your song into sheet music that almost anyone can read and play. I enjoy the study of harmony and music theory in general, and I like to encourage others to study it and grow to understand it. Each new thing I learn seems to help me better understand and appreciate my own accomplishments musically.


Why myelin sheat does not cover the whole axon?

Question: Is there an optimal lenght for myelin sheats to be effective and lead potential across the nerve cell? This has always bugged me.
Answer: The nodes of Ranvier (the gaps between myelin sheath segments) speed up the action potential because the electric current can jump from node to node (or gap to gap). If the myelin covered the entire axon, the signal wouldn't have the gaps to speed up the signal. As for optimal length, the gap is 1μm long, but can be longer, on the order of millimeters depending on the type of cell. The length of the myelin doesn't matter so much as the length of the nodes of Ranvier because they are where the Na+/K+ channels are found so the ion exchange can occur. This is how an action potetial can occur, so the myelin not covering the entire axon is crucial for the ability of neurons to propagate a signal.
Comment: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/40/8/769.short

This paper talks about it! :)
Comment: Yeah I wanted to know if there was an optimal lenght for myelin coverage. I was thinking that probably with a too long myelin cover the jump of potential couldnt occur. Is that right?
Comment: Yes, so longer myelin as in a longer distance between nodes, would likely affect the efficiency of the current jumping from node to node .
Comment: Can you link me to some original research paper or review about this particular topic? I couldnt be able to find anything about. Probably I'm using the wrong keywords.


How does SharePoint 2010 uses the SuperReader/SuperUser accounts?

Question: Have configured the object cache many a times without really thinking about this  - How does SharePoint 2010 uses the SuperReader / SuperUser(Object caching) accounts without password? Remember, there is no place to mention the password.
Answer: SharePoint doesn't need the password because its not actually authenticating anywhere with these accounts. SharePoint uses administrative and service accounts to fetch information and content from the the SharePoint databases. It checks its own internal access control lists (permissions) to determine the level of access an account has on an object - from no access to full control. If it impersonated the current user when accessing objects, each SharePoint user would need to have permissions to access the content databases (as an example).
When configuring the accounts you modify the SharePoint access control lists in the Policy for Web Application settings when you grant full control or full read. This gives the correct account the level of access to the objects for that site collection. I think the following information from Microsoft does a good job explaining why two accounts are needed and how the object cache works.

In SharePoint Server 2013, querying for items is linked with the user account that makes the query. Various parts of the publishing feature make queries for which the results are cached in the object cache. These results are cached based on the user making the query. To optimize the cache hit rate and memory requirements, the queries must be based on whether a user can see draft items. When a publishing control requests the object cache to make a query to get data for the control, the cache makes the query, not as the user making the request, but instead it makes the query twice: once as the Portal Super User account and once as the Portal Super Reader account. The results of these two queries are stored in the object cache. The results for the Portal Super User account include draft items, and the results for the Portal Super Reader account include only published items. The object cache then checks the access control lists (ACLs) for the user who initiated the request and returns the appropriate results to that user based on whether that user can see draft items. By adding the Portal Super User and Portal Super Reader accounts to the web application, the cache must store results for only two users. This increases the number of results that are returned for a query and decreases the amount of memory that is needed to store the cache.

It also helps to keep in mind that SharePoint doesn't actually authenticate any users. It hands the credentials off to the authentication provider (Windows authentication, Forms-based authentication, or SAML token-based authentication) and the authentication provider tells SharePoint if the credentials are valid.
Administrative and service accounts require passwords because they are authenticating somewhere. For example, the Server farm account is used to access the content databases and therefore authenticates on your SQL Server.
Answer: SuperUser and SuperReader accounts are normal account not services accounts that's why these are not managed accounts.
SharePoint use these accounts to cache the data impersonating the App Pool Account. these accounts required Policy of web app level permissions and just grab the data from data base and put it into object cache. So when user make a request, instead going to database information grabbed from Object cache.
Read  first 3 paragraph from this technet will explain you.


What is the difference between "Real Aikido" and traditional aikido?

Question: "Real Aikido" is a Serbian martial art founded by Ljubomir Vračarević originating from traditional aikido. I have been training traditional aikido for 4 years and trained aikido with aikidokas who train "Real Aikido" but didn't see a big difference, at least for techniques we were doing. What is the difference between "Real Aikido" and traditional aikido?
Comment: The name of the style can be misleading.  Perhaps, refer to it as "Real Aikido" - with caps and quotes to distinguish it as a pronoun?  Traditional aikido can be left without quotes and caps to denote something more generic.  On the other hand, there are other styles of Aikido - Aikikai, Yoshinkan, Iwama, Tomiki, for example - and they're distinct from each other.  So  comparison between Real and Aikikai might be different between Real and Yoshinkan, since there are differences between Aikikai and Yoshinkan.
Comment: @Endery I think comparing two styles especially with such woolly criterion as "fight" and "self defence" would be over broad. However, a specific technique (or set of such as oshi taoshi/ikkio/ikkajo for example) would be a good question.
Comment: @Wigwam Tomiki called his style *Shodokan*.
Comment: Oh, I always thought they were different!  I don't know much about the style, there is only one dojo I can find in NJ, they say they are part of the "Tomiki Aikido of the Americas".  What is the difference between an org calling itself Tomiki or Shodokan?  Is it just in name?
Comment: @Wigwam Time to ask a question?… ☺
Answer: answer is - RA is NOT Aikido but initially it was Aikido.  Aikido doesnt have homocide techniques, JuJutsu has - RA also has. RA initially didnt have kills, battery and serious injuries. In attempt to create distinct style of Aikido, Vracarevic merely returned principles that Osensei Morihei Ueshiba removed from Jjj. Aikido didnt emerge instantly - by 1942 it was known as Aikibudojutsu, and even today if kicks,punches,etc are involved we use the term "Aikijutsu". If its only tripping, locks,no intensive violence we call it Aikido. RealAikido teaches necklocks, spinalcord dislocations and variety of fist,elbow,knee,foot blows. IMHO - Aikido must never ever teach lethal techniques Jjj,Bjj,Judo,Sambo and CACC allow learning but bann applying such techniques.
Comment: Sources would improve this answer.  Tomiki Aikido teaches atemi waza (strikes), including a spinal dislocation, and even advises that 50% of your techniques should be atemi waza; the goshin jutsu kata includes kicks.  Both TOmiki and Yoshinkan aikido include weapons work with sword, staff and knife; I don't know whether those are "homicidal", but they might be.    I'm just not sure that your answer holds up to scrutiny.
Answer: Ra lost the concept of harmony as in aikido, harmony is the main thing or main core.. real aikido punches the enemy but aikido doesnt use any punch instead of reflect.
Comment: *Welcome to the site.* Might I strongly suggest you looked at the [help] to see how we work. While this does answer the question, it make bold claims without any justification whatsoever and is therefore a bad answer which will attract down votes. Could you edit it to substantiate your claims?
Comment: Does "Ra" = Real Aikido?


Email notification to the site administrator when new SharePoint group is created

Question: How can I send an Email notification to the site administrator whenever a new SharePoint group is created in the site ?
Answer: You can use an Event Receiver (SPSecurityEventReceiver) to be notified when a group is added, and then include code to send an email accordingly.
Answer: If you are using SharePoint 2013, then you can go with GroupAdded Event Receiver in SharePoint 2013. But if you are with SharePoint 2010 then there is no event receivers for users or user groups.
Users and group details are stored in the User Information list and event handler attached to the user information list are not fired up on an events. So you could not be able to find out find when an group is added.
Other option would be like creating a Timer Job and checking for new groups added and sending mails to the group owner/site owners.
Answer: if you are using the Sharepoint 2013, then here is step by step details to create an event receiver for group added.
here is list of all event receiver for 2013 & 2010


What's the difference between the commands "su -s" and "sudo -s"?

Question: What is the difference between the two super user commands, su -s and sudo -s?
They both give a shell with access to the superuser account.
Answer: In practice, they will both make you the superuser. However, they do slightly different things, in slightly different ways.
First, su - switches you to a login shell, whereas sudo -s does not. In practice, this often means that your environment variables will not be switch to root's for sudo -s. Note that you can run just su to not get a login shell, or sudo -i to get a login shell [not in all versions].
Secondly, su and su - switch to a new user by asking you to authenticate as the new user. sudo -s and sudo -i (and just regular sudo foo) let you run a command for which you're pre-authorized [see /etc/sudoers], possibly by asking you to confirm your current ID.
If you want to be really cute, you can also run sudo su -, which will request to login as root (su -) run by the root user (the sudo part).
If the root user is locked (such as on Ubuntu), you will not be able to login as root using su. In this case, you'll need to use sudo -s or sudo -i
Comment: It's also worth saying that on many distributions `sudo` gives no default privileges to regular users. On those systems, `su` is the only option.
Answer: su -s

Will switch to a user (in this case root) and launch the shell you specify, or one of few other methods of determining the shell. This is useful if you want to use zsh or another shell  as root really quick... and for some reason you're not using sudo.
sudo -s

Just executes a shell using sudo, which would give you a root shell. You can pass a shell to it as well.
su -s is older, much older then the sudo -s command. My guess is that the developer is trying to make it as easy as possible to switch to using sudo.
Answer: su is a command to change to another user, either to run a shell or execute a specific command. You must authenticate as the other user. If you want to su to root, you need the root password.
sudo is a command to execute another command (optionally a shell) as a different user. You must authenticate as your own user. Permission to use sudo (and the specific things you can do with it) are specified by an administrator in the sudoers file.
If you give someone access to su (by, for example, giving them the root password), then they can do anything with it – run other commands, open a shell, change the password, login remotely via ssh, and so on. You're essentially giving them access to the other account, with 'su' being just one thing they can do with it.
sudo is much more fine-grained. You can grant privileges to a user, or to a group. You can allow a user or group to sudo within a certain timeframe (e.g. Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM). You can specify a specific list of commands they're allowed to run (e.g. only /usr/local/bin/run_backup) or you can specify a specific user they're allowed to run commands as (e.g. www, backup, staff, etc).
Besides its flexibility, sudo is a better solution in all cases, because it doesn't require access to anything the user doesn't already have. If you give someone sudo access, you can revoke it by removing their line in the sudoers file, or removing them from the sudoers group. If you delete their account, their access is gone.
If you give them the root password, even assuming they don't do anything unpleasant with it, then they will know it forever. If you have multiple people who need root access for administrative tasks, this means either changing all the root passwords whenever someone leaves, or assuming that it's ok for them to have full access to your systems after you leave.
Comment: good explanation of the differences between the two commands su and sudo.
Answer:
su will ask you the root user password.
sudo will ask you your password (and you need to be cleared for sudo access to do that).
Comment: Generally this is the default behaviour for sudo, but it can also be configured to ask you for the root or other password.
Answer: From Wikipedia:

su (short for substitute user or switch user) is a Unix command used to
  run the shell of another user without
  logging out.
A related command called sudo
  executes a command as another user but
  observes a set of constraints about
  which users can execute which commands
  as which other users (generally in a
  configuration file named /etc/sudoers,
  best editable by the command visudo).
  Unlike su, sudo authenticates users
  against their own password rather than
  that of the target user (to allow the
  delegation of specific commands to
  specific users on specific hosts
  without sharing passwords among them
  and while mitigating the risk of any
  unattended terminals).
Answer: One thing that isn't getting said fully is this: which one you can use often depends on what distribution you're using and who runs it. One or the other (su or sudo) is probably not set up for full use by default. So for example, as some people have mentioned, OS X and Ubuntu disable the root account (su) by default. Equally, Debian does not give regular users any default privileges to sudo. (On all these systems, you can change these defaults, but only if you have some kind of administrative privileges to begin with. I suppose we're talking about a non-server situation and you administrate the machine since we're on SU rather than SF, but just in case.)
Finally, if you want to use sudo in a more fine-grained way, you should look at man sudoers for how to edit the /etc/sudoers file. However, you should never edit it by hand. Use the program visudo - it will prevent you from saving your edits unless they are at least minimally sane. It's a great safeguard against simple errors which could lock you out of your own system's admin privileges.
Answer: On systems where the superuser account is disabled, such as Mac OS X, su will not work; sudo -s will.
Also, it appears there is no su -s available, at least on my machine.
Comment: The reverse is often true. That is, on many older unix-like distributions, regular users have no default privileges under `sudo` (which isn't even always installed).
Answer: This introduction may help you.  su is shorthand for su root, and you keep your rights as the other user indefinitely.  More dangerous, but also more convenient if you're doing many root-access commands over a period of time.
Answer: su will basically create a new login shell with another user privileges (login)
sudo will just temporarily allow you to execute command using the user you specified. On some UNIX like FreeBDS there are no '-s' options.


Using a date column in a sharepoint online web chart web part

Question: I added a "web chart" web part to a sharepoint online page from the browser interface.

Next, I decided to run the Data connection wizard to connect my chart to an excel services. In the step 3 of the wizard (Retrieve and filter data), I can preview the Data.

There comes the problem: my Date column display five-digit integers instead of dates. I've tried to change the format of the column in the source excel book to YYYY-MM-DD, is does not solve my issue.

Can anyone help me with this?
Comment: I am facing the same issue. Tried PirateEric's suggested solution. Doesn't work for me. Please help.
Answer: Go into page edit mode for the web part and select Advanced Properties. Click on the link for Series and scroll down to the Data section. Set either the XValueType or YValueType from Auto to Date and click Finish.


Dark/Grey areas in Prison Architect

Question: In my Prison I turned off Fog Of War, but in most areas where a Gaurd or Staff isn't present the area will turn Dark and Grey. The prisoners do not show and lights don't seem to do anything and when my mouse cursor goes over the area it doesn't light up. Do I need CCTV's there? When I place a gaurd he walks away, is there anyway to make him stay? (I'm relatively new to the game.
)
Comment: If you turned off Fog of War, there shouldn't be any places like this. Check if it is really turned off and restart your game. Sometimes that can fix things. Game is still in beta.
Answer: It sounds like Fog of War is actually turned on. To fix this without having to start your prison from scratch:

Navigate to your save folder (which you can open from within Prison Architect, or the default path is C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Introversion\Prison Architect\saves)
Open the .prison file of your prison in Notepad, or your preferred editing program (make sure you're not running Prison Architect while you edit this file)
Look for the line EnabledVisability = true and change it to EnabledVisability = false. (There are a number of other things you can tweak in this file, like giving yourself extra money - Introversion deliberately made this easy while the game is in alpha, because it's not 100% balanced yet)
Save the file, and re-open your prison

To answer your other questions, yes CCTV would also fix this problem (so long as you had a guard within range of a CCTV monitor). To get a guard to remain in a room, you need to unlock "Deployment" in the Bureaucracy menu (this requires a Warden and a Chief). Deployment allows you to station guards in specific rooms - useful if you have a lot of prisoners in the same place at the same time, such as the canteen. If you want your guards to stand in a specific spot in a room (such as beside a CCTV monitor) you can also designate patrol routes from the Deployment menu.
Comment: an update for the game has made this answer outdated.
Answer: I believe This happens when you use a "simple door" instead of a "prison door." The area greys out, because the door is solid and you can't see anything there. However, a guard entering this area briefly would solve this problem, or just simply having CCTV's. Unfortunately, there is no way to disable this feature (unless via mod) as this effect is embedded in the game code. To Make him stay, you must research Deployment, and make him patrol the area.
Comment: The door has nothing to do with it.

Dark/Grey areas in Prison Architect


Elegant way to animate a binary value?

Question: Lately, I've been doing a lot of animation with binary values: things such as changing the visibility of an object, changing the value of a constraint from 0 to 1, etc. The way I'm doing this currently is by, on one frame, keyframing it, then on the next frame, changing the value and adding a new keyframe. But, since there aren't actually any frames in between the keyframes, this seems like a weird way to do it. Is there any better way? Or is this how it's done? Are there any add-ons that make this more elegant?
Comment: You don't have to put a "holding" keyframe before each one.  Binary values will only change on the keyframe, not before it.
Comment: If you want to alternate a value between every other frame use the Math node and select Modulo with "2" as the second value... ;-)
Comment: @Samoth just in case I want to give anybody who watches my animation a seizure?
Answer: When keyframing binary values there is no need to include a "holding" keyframe as you have described before each change.  Blender knows to only switch the value at the keyframe since there is no way to interpolate a boolean.

In the above example I have visibility keyframes at frames 1, 15, 30, and 40.  Notice that I don't need keyframes at frames 14, 29, and 39 to make sure that it stays constant up until those frames.
Comment: I thought this whole time that it would "interpolate" it the best it could and change the value halfway between the last keyframe! I guess blender is smart...like usual. Thanks!
Comment: @markasoftware TBH, I did too until you asked and I tried it out!
Answer: As PGmath noted there is no need to do anything special for binary values.
Howerver, if you ever deal with values that are not binary, the "elegant" solution you need is setting the Interpolation Mode to Constant
. That way there will be no values in between the ones set for the keyframes:

To access the interpolation options select the keyframes you want to affect and press T (or on the menu select Key->Interpolation)
Comment: probably more of a comment than an answer, since the main part of the question is already answered...but I guess I'll +1 anyways

Elegant way to animate a binary value?


Is there a way to make VirtualBox use a specific monitor when going full-screen?

Question: I am running VirtualBox on a dual-monitor Windows 7 x64 system. When I put a VM into full-screen mode it always appears full-screen on my primary monitor even though the VM window was on the secondary monitor. Is there a way to make it appear full-screen on the secondary monitor?
Answer: When you are in Full Screen mode in the view menu choose "Virtual Screen 1", "Use Host Screen 2"
While in fullscreen mode, press HostKey + Home to bring up the hidden menu.
Select View -> "Virtual Screen 1" -> "Use Host Screen 2"
Comment: Really late to comment, but is it possible to make 'Host Screen 2' the default one?
Comment: @ChethanS. That's done in windows settings.
Comment: So for some reason, this fix didn't work in Full Screen mode for me, but in Seamless mode (my normal mode), using the view menu with this fix did the trick. Thanks!


Using a pen-name: possible legal issues

Question: My question is about publishing under a pen-name.
Does it have to be registered as a trademark?
If it's not registered as a trademark, can someone sue a writer for using it? Because every name you pick is surely also someone else's name. (Every name I could think of returns thousands of results in Google...)
I just basically try to understand how to use a pen name without getting into trouble...Is there maybe a place online where I can get a legal consultation on this topic?
Thanks in advance!
Jackie
Answer: In Massachusetts, the state bar association has a referral service: if you go through them to find a lawyer, the person you talk to will charge only $25 for a half-hour consultation.  If your state has something similar and you want a definitive answer, I would encourage you to use it.
That being said, here is my opinion as a non-lawyer: if your pen name is not being used professionally by another writer, and you're not using the name of someone who is famous for another reason, you should be safe. Basically, you don't want anyone to be able to convince a judge that you are trying to profit from their reputation.
Comment: Or using your work to damage their reputation ("My Life Story, by $celebrity" :-) ).
Answer: I have had something like this happen: someone I worked with many years ago, but whom I did not know well, published two books (or more) using my first and last name as a pen name.  The problem?  First of all, it was an embarrassing book on a psychological disorder, and at least twice in my career I was asked if I had it before I knew about the book.  Secondly, we are very different people with very different views, and while my work enjoyed some degree of success later in life, the earlier pen name has been used a few times to misrepresent who the 'Elizabeth Best' is that wrote her vs. my books.  One well known book sales company had it set up so that when you clicked her pen name,  it went to my books, without a photo.  I don't think they did it on purpose, but it caused a great deal of trouble.
In many states, I believe it is illegal to purposefully without permission use someone's name, even if they are not well known as a pen name, precisely because of the possibility of a scam such as above.  It can be used to infringe on copyright.
Comment: There is a man in England, with the same first and last names as I. We both cycle, program, and have tried to start our own companies. We have never met.
Answer: My legal name is being used as a pen name by a writer who is writing erotic books on Amazon Kindle self-publishing. I have a very unique name and it can be easily confused that I wrote the books, and has been by the public as I am a Notary Public Signing Agent and I have gone and go to many people's homes. I have tried to get information on Amazon Kindle's self-publshing policy,but I keep getting the same answer, "sometimes authors use a pen name when they self-publish on Amazon Kindle." My legal name is Poppy Romero. It is unlikely anyone would carry the same name. I have verified with Amazon Kindle that this author is not using my account, but only my name as his pen name. To make matters worse there has been a rumor there is a local prostitute who uses the name Poppy Romero as her alias name. Protecting my identity and character as proven to be a challenge. Notaries public aren't rich people, they serve the public with good intention with low pay, so I don't have the resources to obtain legal counsel, but the U.S. Trademark customer service did give me info on free legal help through a program they have. The customer service said you can't trademark a name, but I have found info to the contrary.
Comment: Hmm, people get trademarks on names all the time. I'm quite sure that if you tried to start your own line of clothes and called them "Calvin Klein" or "Levis", you'd be sued and lose very promptly. Maybe they mean that you can't trademark a name as an identifier of a person, rather than a product. If you could than all the "Jim Smith"s in the world could be sued, and what are they supposed to do, change their name because someone else made it to the trademark office first?
Comment: I've seen this issue here before...about the writer whose name was being used as a pen name for an erotica author.  Do you have a second account here?  I suggest you get a moderator's help to merge them so you only have one account.
Answer: Have you considered a variation of the spelling?
I write short stories and recently fell in love with the name "Guilbeau." I checked around and learned there are quite a few, so I will use a pen name, "Guilbow Grady," which changes the name slightly to one that should't be a problem. I will let you know if there is any "dustup" for any of the real Guilbeau...
Comment: If I heard 'Guilbow Grady' rather than seeing it written, I'd (never having come across 'Guilbeau/bow' before) assume it was written 'Guilb O'Grady'!

Using a pen-name: possible legal issues


Bradley Cooper's nose

Question: Why did Bradley Cooper's character have an injury (a split at the upper bridge) on his nose during the entire film of Silver Linings Playbook?
Comment: The "scratch" or "scar", on the bridge of his nose looks real. In most movies, injuries sustained as part of the script are usually gone during the course of the movie if not much sooner. This one, while it may seem to lessen in severity, never really disappears and the movie begins with him having it. Why would he get out of the hospital after 8 months, as in the beginning, with this injury? This leads me to believe that it might be a real injury.
Comment: Got it...Thanks Christian, must've been an accident before.
Answer: On Cha Cha: When asked about the scar, Bradley Cooper said "I ran into a support beam, a stucco pillar, in the garage of this apartment I was renting in Venice Beach. The location of the cut meant I couldn't really have it stitched. I love my scar now."
The injury is real, thus the reason for it being on his nose through the entire movie. I believe it was left alone (Not Covered), due to it fitting the character's personality in the film.
He says the same thing in this interview.
Answer: It looks to me to be a scratch which becomes a scar later in the movie. Looking at subsequent images from the movie, it appears to lessen in severity. I therefor don't think it is a scratch (or sore), just the scar after healing. (EDIT: Right click on image and display in a new tab to get the large version of the images.)
Comment: While I haven't seen the movie (and therefore don't dare to judge, not to say downvote, anything) I cannot see how this answers the actual question in any way.
Comment: The question does not match what was happening in the movie, which I pointed out. It answers the question, just not the way the OP was expecting.
Answer: The scar is real...it appears in all three hangover movies as well.
Comment: While this is correct, it's much more brief than and contains less information than BB Stacker's excellent answer.

Bradley Cooper's nose


Xcode crashes on startup

Question: With one particular Xcode project, my Xcode will launch, go through the usual startup (build, find working copies, etc) sequence then after the progress bar stops moving it abruptly quits. This section always seems to be in the crash logs:
<code>Thread 18 Crashed:
0   libobjc.A.dylib                 0x00007fff89eed118 objc_msgSend_vtable4 + 24
1   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f81583 -[XCStringList appendElementsByTransferringFromStringList:] + 174
2   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111fc98cd +[XCStringList(Utilities) stringListWithDirectoryEntriesAtPath:relativeToPath:includedNamePatterns:excludedNamePatterns:directoriesOnly:followSymlinks:recursionType:includeTopLevelDirectoryItself:maxArgumentSize:errorPath:] + 2254
3   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f52a6e -[PBXTargetBuildContext effectiveSearchPathsForSearchPath:] + 533
4   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f52cd4 -[PBXTargetBuildContext _effectiveSearchPathsForSearchPathBuildSetting:] + 275
5   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f6ff8c +[PBXCompilerSpecificationGcc2_95_2 headerSearchPathFlagsInTargetBuildContext:dashIFlagAcceptsHeadermaps:supportsSeparateUserHeaderPaths:] + 733
6   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f70438 -[PBXCompilerSpecificationGcc2_95_2 standardFlagsInTargetBuildContext:] + 188
7   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f743c1 -[PBXCompilerSpecificationGcc3_3 standardFlagsInTargetBuildContext:] + 55
8   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x000000011205c1a3 -[XCCompilerSpecificationClang standardFlagsInTargetBuildContext:] + 302
9   com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f719c1 -[PBXCompilerSpecificationGcc2_95_2 compileSourceCodeFileAtPath:ofType:toOutputDirectory:inTargetBuildContext:] + 3408
10  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x000000011205c063 -[XCCompilerSpecificationClang compileSourceCodeFileAtPath:ofType:toOutputDirectory:inTargetBuildContext:] + 1374
11  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f6fb0a -[PBXCompilerSpecificationGcc computeDependenciesForInputNodes:ofType:variant:architecture:outputDirectory:inTargetBuildContext:] + 2360
12  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111fa8754 -[XCCompilerSpecification computeDependenciesForFilePath:ofType:outputDirectory:inTargetBuildContext:] + 2130
13  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000112050090 -[XCBuildRuleDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesForFilePath:ofType:forBuildFileReference:withOutputDirectory:additionalProperties:inTargetBuildContext:] + 7271
14  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x00000001120485a4 -[XCSourcesBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) _computeDependenciesForFilePath:ofType:forBuildFileReference:usingBuildRule:inTargetBuildContext:processedPaths:] + 2349
15  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000112048cd4 -[XCSourcesBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesForFilePath:ofType:forBuildFileReference:usingBuildRule:inTargetBuildContext:] + 112
16  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000112049293 -[XCSourcesBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesForBuildFileReference:inTargetBuildContext:] + 1442
17  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x000000011203db43 -[XCBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesForAllBuildFileReferencesInTargetBuildContext:] + 2019
18  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x000000011204ac89 -[XCSourcesBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesForAllBuildFileReferencesInTargetBuildContext:] + 48
19  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x000000011204b6fe -[XCSourcesBuildPhaseDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesInTargetBuildContext:] + 2650
20  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111faab64 -[XCProductTypeSpecification computeDependenciesInTargetBuildContext:] + 976
21  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000112039443 -[XCNativeTargetDGSnapshot(DependencyGraphCreation) computeDependenciesInTargetBuildContext:] + 3732
22  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f49ebb -[PBXTargetBuildContext createDependencyGraphWithTargetDGSnapshot:] + 4798
23  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f5bb62 -[PBXTargetBuildContext(DependencyGraphEvents) dg_setTargetSnapshot:] + 453
24  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff88b8e90c __invoking___ + 140
25  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff88b8e7a4 -[NSInvocation invoke] + 132
26  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111f5af48 -[PBXTargetBuildContext(DependencyGraphEvents) processDependencyGraphEvents] + 608
27  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff88b8e90c __invoking___ + 140
28  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff88b8e7a4 -[NSInvocation invoke] + 132
29  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111fa3de7 -[XCInvocationQueue _processNextInvocationInThreadSlotNumber:] + 381
30  com.apple.Xcode.DevToolsCore    0x0000000111fa41f9 -[XCInvocationQueue _processInvocationsInThreadSlotNumber:] + 525
31  com.apple.Foundation            0x00007fff83b671ea -[NSThread main] + 68
32  com.apple.Foundation            0x00007fff83b67162 __NSThread__main__ + 1575
33  libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff81b528bf _pthread_start + 335
34  libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff81b55b75 thread_start + 13
</code>
I've tried running the Xcode uninstall script and re-installing from the App Store, so I don't think my installation is the issue. I'm running OSX 10.7.1.
Answer: I re-created the project with git clone and I was able to open the project again. I suspect that the xcodeproject file was corrupted somehow, perhaps a bad conflict resolution.

Xcode crashes on startup


Macedonian keyboard for Samsung Galaxy Ace

Question: I'm from Macedonia and I'm using Samsung Galaxy Ace and I was wondering if there is any way I can install Macedonian keyboard so I can type in my mother language?
Answer: I hope this should work for you - Macedonian Keyboard App Google Play
Install and change input method when typing to use this keyboard. (To change input method, you can follow this guide - Android Stack Exchange - Change Input Method)

After changing keyboard, select '123' near space button and then
  select 'MKD' at same place to get the Macedonian Keyboard.

You can also try other popular Keyboard apps if they have Macedonian support, unfortunately Swype doesn't have it.

Comment: Yes! I have Macedonian keyboard now and I'm so happy about it. :) I installed the application from the store. Thanks a lot for the help Sameer, I thought it was impossible to have it.


How to deal with bad contiguous edges for 3d printing

Question: I was trying to model my object for 3d-printing and faced this problem. I use 3D Printing Toolbox in Blender v2.79. And checking my object for manifoldness, it shows me that I have Bad Contiguous Edges. I don't know what to do with it.

On this picture, that edges are selected. And 28 Non Manifold Edges are because I haven't used Mirroring yet.
Answer: In Edit mode, I pressed A to select all, then Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Inside.
This fixed it for me as my problematic edges were inside a cylinder recess in my object.
Answer: Select the face, then in Face Menu / Face Data, click "Reverse UV". That generally happens when a face is made on the wrong side.
Additionally, you will need to use "Mesh / Normals / Recalculate Outside". Seen that with parts of bottom faces detected as top in STL exports (bad color seen in Cura for the example)
Answer: Just re-calculate normals(Ctrl+n with everything selected in edit mode). That fixed it for me.


Snapshot pending transactions address strike through line

Question: Hi I have got bit of issue as I have got balance in my seed now as we all know the snapshot happening on 28 jan 2018 was reading article where is says any pending transactions will be wiped out or shall we delete from tangle now as my address says pending what will happen to my Balance.
I was checking my addresses one of the address is got line throughout as in pic
Comment: Is your pending transaction a re-attachment of another confirmed transaction ?
Comment: @ben75 what do u mean by that as I got all transactions in wallet is pending but my balance I can see there
Comment: Addresses get striked out when they already have been spend from, that shouldn't play any role here.What you need to look for is whether you have unconfirmed transactions in 'Transfers' that also weren't confirmed by reattachments.
Comment: @cmpn when u say Unconfirmed that means pending as all my transactions attachment says pending I m bit worried what will happen if I can't get them confirmed plz help
Comment: @Rishab Address attachments do not matter. Only transactions that transfer coins should be confirmed before the snapshot. Simply spoken: if every coin transfer you made was successful you have nothing to worry about.
Answer: Now if you reattache and you will get your balance
Thanks
Comment: This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - [From Review](/review/low-quality-posts/899)


What is it called when water forms to look like a root structure?

Question: I've tried looking it up on google but I can't find anything. I'm talking about when a small amount of water forms to look like a root hair structure, thin and branching out.
Comment: Could you show a picture or describe a little more?
Comment: Do you mean like water does when trickling over glass?
Answer: The term you are looking for is Dendritic, it literally means "having a branched form resembling a tree" and is used to describe the shape of rivers but can also apply to anything with that pattern.
Comment: Metals and other stuff forms these dendritic patterns as they crystalize into a solid from a liquid or vapor.
Answer: Given that you are talking about something small and root-hair like there are no such examples occurring with water in the liquid phase.
It's more likely you saw ice. In science jargon, what you're referring to are known as fractal structures. Below the pictures, I explain why water in the liquid phase can not produce the specific type of fractal structures you're asking about.
If the photos below are not even close to what you were thinking of, and you're sure it wasn't ice, then you probably saw something that wasn't water (for example a clear mold).
There's literally an infinite variety of these fractal ice patterns. Try googling the terms fractal, self-organized, self-similar, self-affine, patterned, or dendritic, complex network followed by any of the words frost, ice, ice-crystal, snow, snowflake.

In response to comments, it's worth clarifying why small amounts of water cannot form static fractal structures. Water has strong surface tension resulting from the polarity of individual $H_2O$ molecules. Surface tension is the reason water beads up to form smooth edges, which is precisely the opposite condition of fractal structures. There are examples (like the structure left behind as water drips down a window) of limited branching with water, but the branching is physically limited by surface tension that forces smaller nearby water to coalesce with the larger structures. For fractal branching to be significant, you must have more than just a primary and secondary branching. That is to say, no scientist would consider something to be a fractal if it occurs over less than an order of magnitude.
Rivers are a different story. Stream networks are fractal by several different measures. However, in line with the details of the question it's important to note
the poster asked about water forming a root like structure. The fractality of river networks is a pattern embedded within the earths surface, yes by the action of water, but water alone is not responsible for the network structure. To oversimplify, it's a sediment transport phenomenon, the flow is multi-phase (water + sediment), and therefore this is not just a water-only phenomenon.
Comment: I'm afraid that this is incorrect. Rivers branch, for example. Water trickling over glass can branch
Comment: @EnergyNumbers The structure of river networks are embedded in topography, i.e. the structure exists whether water is currently in it or not. Water is necessary to form a river network, but moveable sediment is also equally necessary for the feedbacks to take place. I considered water on glass before I made the strong condition "only ice". I concluded there's nothing fractal about the static shapes left by trickling - they aren't fractal even over 1 order of magnitude because surface tension is too strong. Maybe you're thinking of the path trickling water takes (like a directed random walk)?


Inductive approach and descriptive research

Question: Descriptive research is often said to take a deductive approach and is quantitative in nature. Can it also be inductive when little is know about the topic? Is there not a contradiction then?
I am a novice market researcher who loves philosophy but I am getting lost a bit..
Comment: Can you detail more what are you meaning with "Descriptive research" ?
Comment: Hie Mauro, for example if I  would like to find out how much beer students in a particular class drink every week...I am looking to describe the students, I have no idea beforehand..
Comment: I think it is also inductive... You are trying to find some "pattern" (general law) that can describe all the relevant observed facts. To use deduction, you have to formulate some hypothesis; from it derive some conclusions regarding the object you are studying and then try to assess if this conclusion is supported/confirmed or falsified.
Comment: Your title is market researcher. It's associated with business, but you are basically a type of scientist: a social scientist. You observe people and you collect data on people and from people. And you can use probability and statistics to learn from this data. So instead of observing chemical reactions, your subject is human beings as consumers/potential consumers.
Comment: I found this on the internet about deductive/inductive, slide show:  https://msu.edu/course/phl/130/phl130/spring99/yoder_6/lec08/
Comment: Here is a link to a wiki of philosophical realism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism Note, these objects (ontology) are independent of mind (concepts etc).
Comment: Dear Gordon, thank you for the response. I am going to stomach your response during the weekend and I may have some questions! I am knee deep in this stuff. I must have been a detective in a previous life, I love being confused and finding a way out, so you can count on being on this thread again, granted you still wish to help me!!
Answer: It seems to me like you're asking about social science methodology, rather than the philosophical use of these terms.  Let's start with three important distinctions:

quantitative / qualitative:  Quantitative research uses numeric data.  These could be numeric measurements (e.g., the number of people working in a particular industry or living in a particular place) or numerical representations of non-numerical phenomena (e.g., asking people whether they like or dislike Trump and representing the responses as 1 or 0).  Qualitative research uses non-numeric data.  Often these data are transcripts of conversations, between the people being studied or during interviews.  Mixed-methods social science research uses both quantitative and qualitative data.  Recent work in computational social science often applies computational methods to qualitative data, such as text mining.
observational / experimental:  Observational research gathers data with no/minimal/no intended influence on the people or situation under study.  Experimental research makes deliberately intervenes on the people or situation under study, in order to understand the effects of that intervention.
inductive / deductive:  As these terms are used by social scientists, deductive research uses a more-or-less well-developed and articulated theory to collect data and interpret it.  In statistics, this is often called "confirmatory research":  there's a clearly-stated hypothesis, and the aim of the study is to confirm (or disconfirm) it.  Inductive research doesn't have a well-developed or articulated theory.  Often this looks like what statisticians call "exploratory research":  the researchers gather some data, then examine it for patterns, trying to identify phenomena and usually suggest a potential hypothesis that might explain it.

Note that philosophers use the terms "inductive" and "deductive" differently.  Specifically, in logic, deductive arguments (attempt to) guarantee the truth of their conclusions, given the premises; they provide certainty.  Inductive arguments don't offer this kind of guarantee.  Deductive methods used by social scientists will often be inductive in the philosophers' sense:  the assumptions of the theory don't guarantee that the data must be analyzed in a certain way.  And exploratory data analysis (an inductive method, in the social scientists' sense) involves mathematical analysis of data, which is deductive in the philosophers' sense.
To respond to your question, these three pairs of distinctions are independent.  You can have qualitative, observational, deductive research; or qualitative, observational, inductive research; or quantitative, experimental, inductive research; and so on.  Specifically, observational research (what you call "descriptive research") can be quantitative and deductive.  But it could also be quantitative and inductive.  Or qualitative and deductive.  Or qualitative and inductive.


When do you add the proficiency bonus?

Question: I am very new to D&D, but I cannot seem to find when to add the proficiency bonus. From what I can tell from the character sheet, there is a  proficiency bonus for a specific task, and another (on top of  the list of  proficiency bonus) that says:  "Proficiency bonus: +2". What is this and when do I add them?
Answer: Proficiency Bonus is, in general, added to rolls for things you are proficient in.

Proficiency Bonus
The table that appears in your class description shows your proficiency bonus, which is +2 for a 1st-level character. Your proficiency bonus applies to many of the numbers you'll be recording on your character sheet:

Attack rolls using weapons you're proficient with
Attack rolls with spells you cast
Ability checks using skills you're proficient in
Ability checks using tools you're proficient with
Saving throws you're proficient in
Saving throw DCs for spells you cast (explained in each spellcasting class)

PHB - Chapter 1, p. 12.

The spot on the character sheet is just for you to easily write it down and refer to when filling out the rest of the character sheet. For example, when filling out the character sheet you will fill in the circles next to skills you are trained in to remind you that you have proficiency with these skills and add your proficiency bonus to your MOD for that skill.
It should be noted that proficiency is never added to damage rolls.
Comment: Might want to point out the major exception where you don't add your proficiency bonus to a roll you're making with something you're proficient with: damage rolls.
Comment: @PurpleVermont That's a saving throw,  not an ability check. No one has proficiency in general ability checks. (Except bards can add half their proficiency bonus to them, but that's a class feature, not proficiency. )
Comment: A question that will add one additional clarification: When you make a general ability check, that's not for a particular skill and not a saving throw, do I understand correctly that there is no way you can add your proficiency bonus to that?  (So if a rogue has proficiency in Intelligence saving throws, that's nearly useless because they virtually never come up?)
Comment: That's what I thought.  One more detail -- a character *can* have proficiency on a few types of general ability check for a particular ability by using an appropriate "kit" -- for example the thieves' tools kit for doing an unlock doors DEX check.
Answer: You add your proficiency bonus whenever you're proficient.
For example, suppose you are in a forest. You encounter a large pit, which you want to jump over to save time. The DM tells you to make a Strength (Athletics) check, as this requires the Athletics skill to accomplish. Suppose you have no proficiency in Athletics. You will just add your normal Strength Modifier-you won't worry about your bonus or anything.
However, suppose you DO have proficiency in Athletics (indicated by the filled bubble next to it). Then, you will add your proficiency bonus instead of adding your normal modifier, because it is higher.
At Level 1, you have a +2 proficiency bonus, which means, on skills you are proficient in, you add 2 to your normal modifier with your ability. If you have a +3 modifier in Dexterity but are proficient in the skill Acrobatics (which is a Dexterity skill), you will add 2 to your modifier of 3. 2+3 = 5. You'll obviously want to add your +5 bonus instead of your +3 modifier, so that's when you do that.
Basically, add your proficiency bonus whenever you are proficient in that skill.

When do you add the proficiency bonus?


How to create a translucent image-as-plane

Question: I have imported an image as plane PNG in cycles render, with premultiplied alpha, emission and transparent. I would like to adjust its transparency.  How do I do this? Thank you!
Comment: Could you upload an image to make things a bit clearer?
Comment: Oh wait do you mean adjust how clear the image plane is?
Comment: I think I understand, what @WhishyQ is getting at is using the import image as plane add-on, and giving the the material the imported material some added transparency via cycles. This may be a challenge with a combination of mix/ transparent/ and diffuse shaders, but certainly can be done. Can you fill us in on the details of the object if it is anything beyond Blender's defaults? Pictures do help, even more so .blend files. They be uploaded to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ for further inspection.
Comment: You would like to adjust it's transparency in the 3d viewport on screen or in the rendered output (aka clicking the render button)?
Answer: You can add a Converter/math node between the alpha and the mix shader of the node tree.

Changing the values between 0 to 1, you can determine how the alpha affects the transparency. 0 will be fully transparent, 1 will be opaque.


Auto-fill from another spreadsheet

Question: I'm in need of a way to populate cells in an excel form with specific data from another excel worksheet, is this possible?
Answer: If you're talking about filling in a template (form) with information from a row-based 'database' sheet, and you're wanting a formula-based solution...
1) On your form, manually enter the "key" piece of information that is usually found in column A of your database.  This could be a code, a unique name, whatever.  Let's say that manual cell was A1.
2) On your form, you would now enter VLOOKUP formulas in all the other cells to bring over the matching row information from the database.  So to put the value from column B in your database into cell A5, you could do this in A5:
=VLOOKUP($A$1, Database!$A:$B, 2, 0)
To get column C into A10 you could put this in A10:
=VLOOKUP($A$1, Database!$A:$C, 3, 0)
...and so on.  When you're done creating your lookup formulas, you can now change the value in A1 and all the other cells will change to information from the database.  If you enter a value in A1 that is not in the database, then the cells would re

Auto-fill from another spreadsheet


Difference Between FRA and IR Future pricing

Question: [original question was to know the difference between IR fut and FRA]
Turns out that FRA and IR Futures are just the OTC and Futures counterpart of the same underlying, that is, the interest rate.
However, the 2 differ in terms of pricing, as will any 2 contracts with exactly same terms except their settlement(daily MTM vs payment at maturity).
So, my question is, is there a way to quantify this difference?
Answer: The key differences are:

Futures are traded on exchanges and settled via mark-to-market (MTM) margin accounts with the exchange. FRAs are over-the-counter (OTC) products with collateral exchanges based on the MTM of the trade and subject to the credit support annex (CSA) agreement between the bilateral counterparties
FRAs can be written as any tenor out of any date, e.g. 3x9 14th is an FRA that starts on the 14th day of the 3rd month from today and runs for a tenor of 6months (9 minus 3). IR futures have specific settlement dates that corresponding to IMM dates, which are defined as the third wednesday in a month, and usually always only run for a 3M tenor.
The prices of an IR future is quoted in price terms as 100 - rate, whereas an FRA is quoted in rate terms.
The implied rate for FRAs and IR futures (assuming you align settlement dates) are broadly the same and never differ by a few basis points. The difference is due to the products having different gammas. IR futures always have the same amount of risk per contract regardless of the rate, so have no gamma. FRAs have gamma so for the same notional the risk is larger for lower rates. Since gamma is valuable FRAs are usually over-received and IR futures are usually oversold, hence the small difference in their implied rates - FRA rates are generally lower than implied futures rates.
Comment: @ attack68 your last paragraph is wrong. The cash that is posted on the collateralized FRA receives interest (usually Fed Funds) whereas the futures cash flows receive no interest.  The convexity adjustment is a real economic effect.
Comment: @dm63 happy to remove the para until I can better formulate my intentions. In your scenario when you receive interest on the FRA collateral, the MTM value of the FRA will worsen overnight as the settlement is now one day closer in discounting terms, so I don't understand the notion of economic gain here. Note the delta of the FRA changes o/n due to increased discounting and therefore to maintain delta neutrality overnight you have to reduce the FRA position, so if the price returns to the executed level the your earned interest is negated by the small loss on the rehedge. This ignores gamma.
Comment: Also note that Eurex and LCH net margin accounts across products, so IR futures, FRAs and IRSs are all grouped together and interest paid on those margin account balances is OIS. I suspect we both understand the same concept and are just discussing semantics. I have always valued convexity in terms of gamma.
Answer: An IR futures is a futures contract. Therefore it is exchange traded and PnL is reflected every day on the margin account.
With futures you usually have the expectation under the risk neutral measure for pricing:
$$
f_{t,T} = E[r_T|F_t].
$$
You can calculate this using a properly calibrated interest rate model and Monte Carlo e.g.
The FRA is as far as I know OTC and PnL is exchanged in the end of the period.
The mark-to-market price is the corresponding foward rate.
Both prices are usually close.
In the case of IR futures you can reinvest gains (as you get paid during before maturity), furthermore you get paid during the trading time of the futures and not just in the end. Therefore, you have an adjustment to the forward rate - often called the convexitiy adjustment (which you can calculate explicitely in some IR-models) - search for "Convexity Adjustments to Eurodollar Futures".
In general, the convexity adjustment represents the difference between the forward and the futures price.
Comment: I don't understand how you relate convexity to reinvested gains and also dm63s suggestion of OIS interest. In a negative interest rate environment such as EUR, are you suggesting that convexity value would be opposite to that in a positive rate environment because the reinvestment yields negative interest? This certainly isn't true in practice and is why I expressed convexity valuation in terms of gamma and delta changes rather than any form of cash. But I am very keen on understanding other intuitive reasoning (if its correct).
Comment: as a quick answer: the conxexity adjustment certainly is more. All in all you have to calculte the expectation to get it right and then you can look at the difference to the FRA. of cours you don't gain always ...I should clarify this