Is there any evolutionary advantage of selection of L-amino acid over D-amino acid?

Question: After listening to a scientific talk, I had this question that why in the natural selection process, are the L-amino acids selected over the D- form. However, we still we produce D-amino acids; specifically in the brain there is a higher concentration of D- amino acids. One possible reason is that they act as neurotransmitters.
Comment: It would be nice if you can add a reference for brain having D- amino acids.
Comment: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18564180/
Comment: Just in case the situation changes.
Answer: The current thinking amongst biophysicists is that if we all woke up tomorrow to find that someone had edited the book of life so as to exchange all of the L-'s and D-'s (and made similar mirroring changes to all of the molecules that any protein interacts with), everything would be exactly the same.
Milton, et al. (Science, 1992) lent supporting empirical evidence to this view by carrying out the total chemical synthesis of a D-enzyme, D-HIV-1 protease. They showed that the L- and D- versions of the enzyme had identical and reciprocal activity, meaning that L-enzyme cut the L-substrate well and the D-substrate poorly, and vice-versa for the D-enzyme:

They also showed that the structures the L-enzyme and D-enzyme were mirror images of one another:

The preference for L- forms over D- emerged sometime early in evolutionary history, and there's a lot of speculation as to how the preference arose (it could have been cosmic rays!), but the evidence is thin.
Comment: @ChrisStronks At least for enzyme activity, I think that the invariance of L- and D- follows from the fact that electromagnetic interactions don't change for a parity transformation (reflection is a type of parity transformation). So it would probably be the same for any enzyme.
Comment: @ChrisStronks And the mirror structure result would almost certainly be the same for any protein. A protein is the same as any other molecule in that if you flip all of the chiral centers you end up with its mirror image.
Comment: Interesting! But do you think their results (mirror structure and swapped substrate preference) extrapolates to all enzymatic reactions or is this a lucky shot?
Answer: As you say yourself, biological molecules are usually available in both chiralic possibilities, yet nature uses only one of the two possibilities. At some point in our molecular evolution (and at a very early one) L-amino acids were stochastically "chosen" over their D-equivalents (I think that the choices would have been equiprobable). There is no reason why D-amino acids shouldn't work here as well.
There is some discussion on why L-amino acids are used, see the references for some ideas. It might be that the proteins made from it where slightly more stable or because they were more abundant. D-amino acids are in use today as a protective step - most proteases for example cannot hydrolyse the D-amino acids in the peptidoglycan wall of bacteria. Using this "unusual" amino acids gives some protection here.
References:

Mirror symmetry breaking in biochemical evolution
Mirror symmetry breaking at the molecular level
Origin of homochirality in biological systems
Comment: @ChrisStronks yes.. the peptidoglycan of gram positives have D-amino acids
Comment: I added a small comment in the bracket if you don't mind.
Comment: You mean that organisms use the D-variant in their cell wall? Interesting.
Answer: This question is a matter of discussions, but I'd like to mention that there's basically two viewpoints. The first viewpoint is that the symmetry breaking is global (in other words, there's a reason why exactly L-amino acids; if there are other planets with Life, L-amino acids should be "used" on all of them or at least on the major number of them). The second viewpoint is that the symmetry breaking is local (or spontaneous; and hence Life outside Earth can "use" aminoacids of arbitrary sign).
The only global reason for global symmetry breaking known in physics is weak interaction. There were some efforts to connect weak interaction and symmetry breaking in biomolecules, starting from Vester-Ulbricht hypothesis, but it seems that there's no confirmed mechanism of this connection. You may read this review which may be outdated (2000) but at least it can give you an idea about what kinds of mechanisms were tested.
The science around the local symmetry breaking is much more rich but works like Sutherland's (Powner, Gerland, Sutherland, «Nature», 2009, 459, 239—242, doi:10.1038/nature08013) are about the mechanism of possible local symmetry breaking, and the question "why L?" is meaningless in frames of this view (or in other words answer is "it was just a random choise"; in fact, it is not even concluded if this "choise" was made on a chemical level or during biological evolution).
PS By the way, more recent papers (1, 2) suggest there's some progress in the field.
Comment: `There were some efforts to connect weak interaction and symmetry breaking in biomolecules`. That is the most crazy-yet-still-vaguely-plausible thing I have ever heard. Well done
Comment: @tel yeap, that's because it's a very attractive approach for physicists. Actually it's not that vague if you read that review, but the point is -- there's no reasonable success in proving that point..


What makes a war be classified as a "world" war?

Question: Throughout the history of human beings, there have been countless wars among on, two or multiple countries, but only two of these have been dubbed "world" wars. Which leads me to my question, is there a specific set of demands that a war has to meet in order to be called a world war or is it decided conventionally?
Comment: Churchill famously characterized the [Seven Years' War](http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Seven_Years_War) as the "real" First World War - it started in Pennsylvania and wrapped up in India.
Comment: I've heard it argued convincingly that the [30 Years' War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War) has more claim to be called World War I than World War I does, so that's something to think about.  It's not like there's an academic committee or government bureaucracy that got together and decided on appropriate naming and labels for the public to use in referring to these two wars.
Comment: From [wikipdia/world_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war) talk "World War - A war involving many important nations - Oxford English Dictionary Online

A world war never meant a majority of the world's nations, a war fought over the world, etc. It was always a war with the major nations involve. A war between the USA, GB, China, Russia and India fought on a tennis court would still be a world war. A war between Poland, New Zealand, Argentina and Singapore fought all over the world would not be a world war. This wikipedia article is wrong."
Comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War, and sometimes referred to as the African World War
Comment: What leads you to believe that there is a definition?
Answer:
A war involving many large nations in all different parts of the
  world. The name is commonly given to the wars of 1914–18 and 1939–45,
  although only the second of these was truly global.

Is the definition according to the dictionary, however there are no specific criteria involved. The reason that WW1 and WW2 are considered "World Wars" is because the main countries involved in the wars e.g. Britain, France, Germany also pitted their empires into the war.
The British Empire alone in 1920 (shortly after the end of WW1) covered roughly 1/4 of the Earths surface and population and during both WW1 and WW2 fought in theaters across multiple continents, thus making it a truly global war.
Comment: I think you mean 1/4th of the landmass, since majority of Earth's surface is covered by water. :)
Comment: @taninamdar but the British ruled by sea. :P
Comment: Adwaenyth -  but the sea was not legally part of  their empire.  By that era the sea was considered free to all and impossible for one country to rule.  The song "Britannia rule the waves" was legally misleading.
Answer: World War I was originally called Great War, only after Second World War the denomination was changed. Hence is quite probable than in the future the names will still be subject of change.
Some authors talk about European Civil War instead of World War to cover the period from 1870 to 1945 or 1914 to 1945, including here Russian and Spanish civil wars. Others say that this period was actually a religious war between communism and nationalism.
Summary: Names of events and periods are constantly changing according to new theories, sources of information or events.
Answer: The term "World War" is a fairly modern invention -- one source says it was coined in 1940 to describe the then-ongoing wars in Europe and the Far East and retroactively applied to the Great War to name it WWI.  (Note that there is no claim that the phrase "World War" was first used only in 1940. the claim is that it first came into general use about then to name WWI and WWII.)
There is no formal definition of what a "World War" is, though many have been proposed.  No one is in charge of deciding what was a World War and what wasn't. There is no consensus beyond what nearly everyone agrees: that World Wars are big and that there have been at least two, both in the 20th century.
I have a book -- which, unfortunately, I can't locate -- titled something like "The Nine World Wars" which makes a fair attempt to look back in history and to develop a definition of "World War" which fits our use of the term and to examine what other conflicts fit it.
As I recall, its definition was that to be a World War, a conflict must (1) be fought over most of then then-known world, (2) must include most of the major powers throughout that known world, and (3) must be a "big" conflict which fully engages the combatants.  (Personally, I find this to be about as workable a definition as we're ever likely to have.)
So, contra Wikipedia, the Punic Wars do not qualify, since, while they were certainy big wars, they were confined geographically to the western Mediterranean, and only involved two of the world's great powers.  In fact, no civil war and no war between neighboring states that remains mostly confined to the territories of those two states could qualify.
Likewise, the wars of prehistory don't qualify, mostly because we know so little about them, and because their "known world" was so very small.  YMMV.
What does qualify besides WWI and WWII?  Perhaps the wars between Greece and Persia since they culminated in Alexander's conquest of most of the known world -- all except the barbarian West and India which he attempted to invade and failed.
The Seven Year's War certainly qualifies, as it was fought over most of the globe -- as noted by @Spencer, above, its first battle was in Pennsylvania and last was in India.  It was a huge war and nearly all of the great powers were included in the festivities.
Ditto the Napoleonic Wars: While fought mostly in Europe, battles were fought over the world's oceans and on at least four continents. Only China and Japan managed to remain outside the conflict.
It's been argued that the Cold War was a World War.  It certainly was big -- it cost more than any previous war -- and it certainly included all the Great Powers and it certainly was world-wide...but was it a war?
The list will inevitably be debated.  To start with, there is no bright line dividing World Wars from "ordinary" wars.  Secondly, the criteria are necessarily to some extent subjective, e.g., what counts as a "Great Power"?  Finally, to you slice and dice or lump? (For example, a reasonable argument can be made that the Wars of the American Revolution, the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars are all phases of one 40-year-long war.)
Comment: @Tom: I certainly will. (I just looked through my general history shelves and failed to find it. I fear I may have loaned it to someone.)
Comment: World War 3 may involve all of the middle east at war. (eg. Iran) While Pakistan & India go to nuclear war. And North Korea and US go to nuclear war.  The war would span multiple continents because North Korea already possess ICBM's. I believe this would classify as a world war.
Comment: Another example of a world war can be found from sy-fy movies such as the first Machine War from the Ani-Matrix. All of humanity's countries were directly involved and the war spanned most continents.  Ending with the victory of the machines. So a war between AI & Mankind has the potential to be a world-war.
Comment: +1, And if you happen to find the book or its name I would be very grateful if you'd share it with us.
Answer: They are decided conventionally. For example Americans called "European War" instead of WW1 at the time. There is no specific criterion for it. However, for a war to be world war it should include most powerful and populous countries, multiple continents. And they generally include multiple conflicts between those countries.


Good microscope?

Question: Hi I am a teenager and I recently studied biology and found it very interesting. I want to get a microscope and study further into the microscopic world. What would be the best microscope for me? I would like to see the cells in living organisms. I am willing to spend about $200 as well.
Comment: Welcome to Biology.SE. What are you interested in observing? Do you want to be able to see individual cells? See bacteria?
Answer: So there are a couple of things you should ask yourself:
a) how 'small' do you want to see
b) what are you trying to study - (microspores can differ depending on that. Examples: Microbiology - (bacteriology), Plant biology...)
200 dollars for a 'proper prof. microscope'I do not think is enough. However I do not think that is what you are looking for (For example, the one I use in the lab is around 1,200$, and it is not even the best) However, I think this microspore will be good for a beginner home one:  http://www.microscopenet.com/40x2000x-amscope-binocular-biological-compound-microscope-p-10436.html?osCsid=l26ecpfe9nfvbvr306ddvbca14
I think this would be your best fit for the type of microscope you are looking for, however you can look around to see if you can find it for a better deal.
Hope this helps
Answer: If you are lucky and live in a university town with student shops, which are run by student organizations, I would recommend you to visit one of those shops.
Often they sell used microscopes, which are no longer needed. If you do not mind that these microscopes have been used before, you will get a much better quality for less money.
If you go to such a shop by yourself as a teenager, and tell them how eager you are about learning biology, I guess that they would not hesitate to sell you a good microscope for little money.

Good microscope?


Craft CMS, Amazon EC2 & Load balancers

Question: I am looking for a simple solution & if possible resources on how to go about getting Craft CMS setup behind a load balancer. Craft CMS is going to be hosted on AWS EC2 instance, I have MySQL on a different instance. I have read about setting up and using shared storage variables but I haven't really found a way to setup a shared storage. Anyone has any idea on where to begin?
Answer: I don't know if anything on AWS can be considered simple, but there is a good writeup on getting Craft up and running with EC2: https://solspace.com/blog/spinning-up-a-craft-cms-development-site-on-amazon-ec2
Comment: Brad - The solution I looking for is to create a shared storage between 2 CraftCMS installations. I have read about this [link](http://craftcms.stackexchange.com/questions/4719/load-balancing-nodes-configuration-3-craft-nodes-behind-f5-big-ip) but I have to think about transitioning to Azure next year (we are changing from AWS to Auzre) and don't want to change paths when that happens (images, documents,etc).

Craft CMS, Amazon EC2 & Load balancers


Naming a class representing a collection of objects of another class

Question: This is always a problem for me. Say, in a game, there's a class representing an enemy spacecraft named EnemySpacecraft and there's a class representing some collection of those, say all that exist in the game. This class may be implemented as just an encapsulated array of enemy spacecrafts. Giving this class a name like EnemySpacecrafts is way too similar to the singular form. My other ideas are e.g. AllEnemySpacecrafts or EnemySpacecraftCollection, but I don't know how good I would say those are. What is a proper name to give here? Is there a convention I'm unaware of?
Comment: It might be helpful to explain why you need a new class for this collection, rather than using a built-in collection type. (Also the platform you're working on.)
Comment: Adding an 's' to the end of a class name is a perfectly good way to indicate a collection of them.
Answer: Welcome to the worse part of this job. Naming things.
Here some suggestions
1. Reusability
Let's say you want to reuse the concept of groups for different entities of the game.
You could use a basic name alongside generics
- Raid<>:
  - Raid<EnemySpacecraft>
- Party<>
  - Party<EnemySpacecraft>
- Fleet<>
  ...

They also remain loyal to the game's jargon (God, how I miss MMOs).
2. Concreteness

EnemySpacecraftRaid
EnemySpacecraftParty
EnemySpacecraftFleet

One benefit of omitting the suffix Collection is that you don't tie the name solely to the idea of having just a collection. A Raid<?> might involve behaviours and attributes like any other entity in the game, not only .iterator(), .get(int), add(), remove() and so on so forth.
What I like about this approach is it applies the ubiquitous language of the domain (games) to the code.
On the other hand, if you want everything to be subordinated to the technical language, then...

there's a class representing some collection of those, say all that
exist in the game.

The ideal name would be EnemySpacecraftRepository. But I get the feeling that this name doesn't meet your expectations. Right?
Comment: strictly speaking I think the plural would fit the ubiquitous language better
Answer: I think you need to clearly separate what the list is representing from what a particular instance is being used for.
Using Java syntax, a collection of spacecraft could be as simple as
List<Spacecraft> activeEnemies = ...
List<Spacecraft> enemyAttackForce = ...
List<Spacecraft> surrenderedEnemies = ...
List<Spacecraft> destroyedEnemies = ...

If a list of enemy spacecraft has methods that make sense only for enemy craft, then by all means write a class that encapsulates that behaviour. But don't mix the concepts. EnemySpaceCrafts and EnemySpaceCraftCollection are OK names, if a little clumsy (I don't have a better suggestion). AllEnemySpaceCraft is not so good, as it suggests you should not reuse the class when you need another unrelated collection of enemy spacecraft.
Answer: Why is it way to similar to the singular form?  I much prefer plural and singular forms to differentiate - I guess I have my mind trained to look for the 's', but I'm also a big fan of keeping junk out of names.
I wouldn't want to see 'Collection' post-fixed to a name...  That's a big word. skimming through my code and my mind's going to want to think hey that's a big word, we should pay attention to it before I have a chance to think 'oh that's just a plural form represented with 9 more letters than necessary.  It's clutter.
enemySpacecraft
enemySpacecrafts

One is singular, the other is plural.  I don't think it can get much more simple than that!
Keep in mind that code context also helps:
craft.Fire();
crafts.Each(x => x.Fire());

Adding anything more is just getting in the way.  Less is more, as they say.
(disregard the fact that 'spacecraft' is actually a singular and plural word... perhaps a poor example for the topic, but you get the idea)
Answer: I love to think of an item as a collection of one. I support this notion by implementing methods that work on collections with supplemental methods to handle scalars; purely for syntactic sugar. The scalar method seldom does little more than to call its counterpart. The method that works on the collection does all the work to harness the power if code re-usability, yesss!
If I implement this.rows([] item) I will more likely also have this.row(int item).  I have used this design pattern for almost two decades and no complaints yet. The reason is not brevity, coolness or magic but rather consistency. If you have the discipline to be consistent you cannot go wrong with any reasonable style that you choose.
I find simplicity to be of utmost elegance so i save all my energy for super elaborate documentation :-)
Comment: Maybe, because the answer doesn't respond the question. `What is a proper name to give here? Is there a convention I'm unaware of?`
Comment: That's a better answer :-)
Comment: Could the downvotes explain themselves?  In many cases this is a good idea.  Note that it also allows for a collection of zero.  Depending on your language, varargs can help with this.
Comment: I apologize for the lack of clarity, "no there is not". Document and be consistent.


How frequently does the use of topical fluorouracil cream result in permanent scarring and/or skin discoloration?

Question: I wonder how frequently the use of topical fluorouracil cream results in permanent scarring and/or skin discoloration (e.g., hyper- or hypopigmentation).

What I have found so far doesn't give any source supporting their claims and is sometimes contradictory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fluorouracil&oldid=983527347#During_topical_use:

Uncommon (0.1–1% frequency):

hyper- or hypopigmentation
Scarring

They give 2 references ("[9][14]"):

[9]: Rossi, S, ed. (2013). Australian Medicines Handbook (2013 ed.). Adelaide: The Australian Medicines Handbook Unit Trust. ISBN 978-0-9805790-9-3.
[14]: "Efudex, Carac (fluorouracil topical) dosing, indications, interactions, adverse effects, and more". Medscape Reference. WebMD. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2014.

But I don't have access to [9] and the reference [14] only says:

Hyperpigmentation (rare)
Scarring (rare)"

without any references and precise frequency numbers ("rare" can mean anything from >0 to ~20%).
I also found on http://chemocare.com/chemotherapy/drug-info/fluorouracil.aspx:

These side effects are less common side effects (occurring in about 10-29%) of patients receiving Fluorouracil:

Skin reactions : Dry, cracking, peeling skin. Darkening of the skin (hyperpigmentation), darkening of the skin where previous radiation treatment has been given (radiation recall).

How frequently does the use of topical fluorouracil cream (e.g., to treat a superficial basal cell carcinoma (BCC)) result in permanent scarring and/or skin discoloration? I'm looking for a percentage from some study instead of a vague, unsupported "rare", "sometimes", etc. that the quotes above give.
Answer: The 2009 systematic review {1} summarized the likelihood of scarring and/or skin discoloration (e.g., hyper- or hypopigmentation) after the use of topical fluorouracil cream to treat a basal cell carcinoma (BCC):

Note that I believe it is very likely the likelihood of skin discoloration (e.g., hyper- or hypopigmentation) depends on the skin type and the size+location of the BCC tumor.

References:

{1} Love WE, Bernhard JD, Bordeaux JS. Topical imiquimod or
fluorouracil therapy for basal and squamous cell carcinoma: a
systematic review. Arch Dermatol. 2009;145(12):1431–8. https://doi.org/10.1001/archdermatol.2009.291


Magnetic Dipole Moment

Question: I've been trying to tackle this problem for more than a day now, and would appreciate some help. The problem is to prove that the magnetic dipole moment of a spherical ball of mass $m$ and charge $Q$, whose charge is distributed uniformly only on its surface, rotating about its center, is equal to $$ \vec{\mu} = \frac{5Q}{6m} \vec{L}.$$
My reasoning is this: We know the formula for the dipole moment in terms of the surface charge density $K$, which is $$\vec{\mu} = \frac{1}{2} \oint \vec{r} \, ' \times \vec{K} \, dA.$$ Ok, next we have to figure out these quantities. Well, by definition $\vec{K} \equiv \sigma \vec{v}$, where $\sigma$ is the surface charge density. Using this we can write it as
$$
\begin{align}
\vec{K} &= \sigma \vec{v} \\
&= \sigma \vec{\omega} \times \vec{r} \\
&= \sigma \omega R \sin \theta \hat{\phi}.
\end{align}
$$
Next, we know that $\vec{r} \, ' = R\hat{r},$ since what we are integrating only lies on the surface. Now, all we do is take the cross product:
$$
\begin{align}
\vec{\mu} &= \frac{1}{2} \oint R\hat{r} \times \sigma \omega R \sin \theta \hat{\phi} \, dA \\
&= \frac{\sigma \omega R^2}{2} \oint \sin \theta (-\hat{\theta}) \, dA.\\
\end{align}
$$
We know that the dipole moment will be in the $z$ direction because that is the direction of the angular momentum, so we can rewrite $\hat{\theta}$ in our equation above, taking only the $z$ component. $\hat{\theta} = \cos \theta \cos \phi \hat{i} + \cos \theta \sin \phi \hat{j} - \sin \theta \hat{k}$ and so we get $$\vec{\mu} = \frac{\sigma \omega R^2}{2} \oint \sin^2 \theta \hat{k} \, dA$$
We know that $dA = R^2 \sin \theta \, d\theta \, d\phi$, and our limits of integration are from $0$ to $2 \pi$ for $\pi$ and from $0$ to $\phi$ for $\theta$, so our final result comes out to:
$$
\begin{align}
\vec{\mu}  &= \frac{\sigma \omega R^2}{2} \int_{\phi = 0}^{2 \pi} \int_{\theta = 0}^{\pi} \sin^2 \theta \hat{k} (R^2 \sin \theta \, d\theta \, d\phi) \\
&= \frac{\sigma \omega R^4}{2} \int_{\phi = 0}^{2\pi} \int_{\theta = 0}^{\pi} \sin^3 \theta \hat{k} \, d\theta \, d\phi \\
&= \frac{\sigma \omega R^4}{2} \frac{4}{3} 2 \pi \hat{k} \\
&= \frac{4}{3} \sigma \omega \pi R^4 \hat{k}.
\end{align}
$$
Last but not least, we need to put this into the correct form as the problem asks us for. We know that $\sigma = \frac{Q}{4\pi R^2}$ and $\vec{L} = I_{sphere} \vec{\omega} = \frac{2}{3} mR^2 \omega \hat{k},$ since the angular velocity is directed in the $z$ direction. To finish it off, we plug in these values and get:
$$
\begin{align}
\vec{\mu} &= \frac{4}{3} \frac{Q}{4\pi R^2} \omega R^4 \pi \hat{k} \\
&= \frac{Q\omega R^2}{3} \hat{k} \\
&= \frac{Q}{3} \frac{3\vec{L}}{2m} \\
&= \boxed{\frac{Q}{2m} \vec{L}}
\end{align}
$$
oops... Once again, this is not the correct answer and I cannot find any faults, so help would be much appreciated! Thank you in advance as usual.
Comment: I think your assumption that $\vec{r}' = R\hat{r}$ with constant $R$ is wrong. You are rotating around the $z$ axis, so your electrons circle around that axis with different $R(z)$: for $z = \pm R_0$, $R(z)=0$, for $z=0$, $R(z) = R_0$. Currently, you are calculating a rotating cylinder (or ring) instead of a ball (but for that, your result would be correct).
Comment: Hm okay, but what would $\vec{r} \, '$ be then? Would it be  $\vec{r} \, ' = R_0 \sin \theta \hat{r}$, since at $ z = R_0$, $\vec{r} \, ' (R_0) = \vec{r} \, '(\theta = 0) = 0$ and at $z = 0$, $\vec{r} \, ' (0) = \vec{r} \, '(\theta = \pi) = R_0.$
Comment: Yes, although you have to make sure you have the right sign. Alternative: set $r(z)^2=R^2-z^2$, and use an integral over z (not sure what's easier). Also check if you maybe have a solid ball (for the mass of the ball and therefore I ), you might get the missing 5 there (or maybe the 5 comes from the integral $R^4dr$).
Comment: Duuuuuuude! That's the whole problem! The moment of inertia is supposed to be $\frac{2}{5} mR^2$, then we get the correct answer. What stupid mistake...
Answer: The moment of inertia is supposed to be $$I = \frac{2}{5} mR^2,$$ because it is a solid sphere, not a thing spherical shell. Plugging the correct moment of inertia yields the correct answer!

Magnetic Dipole Moment


Sprout Forms CC

Question: Does anybody know if it's possible to CC people on Sprout Forms notifications? I know I can add multiple email addresses to the notify field, but ideally, I would like to CC someone.
Answer: Sprout Forms (for Craft 3) supports CC and BCC options as well as the option to send to recipients as individual emails (where each recipient just sees that they received an email) or as a single email (where each recipient can see the other users who the email was sent to or CC'd.

Legacy Answer:
At the time of this posting, there is no way to CC a person using Sprout Forms. It's on our list to consider adding at some point.
With Sprout Email, you can set up multiple notifications so that one email is sent to one user and another is sent to another user.  This doesn't solve your goal of CCing a user either, but it would let you get the secondary email address you want to CC out of the primary email to: field.
Comment: Thanks, Ben. I talked with my client yesterday and they were actually fine with being included in the to: field.
Comment: Any update on this? Is adding a CC/BCC still on the list to consider?
Comment: Hey @TrevorDavis, just updated the original answer. Still on the list, but back on the drawing board.
Comment: Sprout Forms now supports CC & BCC options.

Sprout Forms CC


Landlord locking out tenants to force them to visit

Question: Suppose a tenant has access to their rented UK flat using an electronic card system which is maintained by the landlord.  Is it legal for the landlord to use the system to purposely lock the tenant out in order to force them to visit (for instance, to pick up a new replacement card or for some other reason).  If not, what specific law is being broken?
Answer: A tenant has a right to "quiet enjoyment" of the premises. By locking them out the landlord is breaking the contract.
Comment: But if the landlord did, say, have reason to believe that the card system had been compromised, wouldn't he have a duty to disable the cards and require tenants to pick up new ones?. Not familiar with UK law so I don't know about this.
Answer: The right to quiet enjoyment means that you have a right to exclusive and private occupation of your home. As a tenant, you have the right to control who enters and visits the property, which includes the landlord, the managing agent, any service companies that do repairs, etc.
It's a bit of a shady area, but most of the times you can even change the locks and keep the keys to yourself. Your landlord will require access on numerous occasions, like inspections, repairs, etc. However, if you allow them access without being too difficult, you can keep the keys to yourself. It's unlikely they can get a court order for you to provide keys to them because it goes against your right of quiet enjoyment.
However, it's absurd that your landlord locks you out entirely, forcing you to do whatever it is to gain back access.
You should send them an official letter, notifying them that they are seriously breaching the tenancy agreement and that you have a right to exclusive access and occupation of the property. Threaten them with legal action if this problem is not resolved immediately. It's likely they will not do it again.
Here is more information on a landlord's access rights.


How to move google sitemap.xml created using core service from CMS server to CD server?

Question: I want to create tridion core service application to create google sitemap.xml file. My CMS server is windows server and CD server is linux server.Is it possible to push sitemap.xml from CMS server to CDA server ? If yes, please suggest how can we do it ?
Comment: Am I missing something? Right-click, publish?
Answer: I suggest to use the regular tridion publish functionality for this.
A more simple approach would be to use a template building block to generate the sitemap xml, in that case, you could simply use this tbb to publish a certain page.
There is an example of similar functionality here
http://www.tridiondeveloper.com/web-sitemap
If you really need to use core services, then I suggest to use the following approach

generate the sitemap.xml from core services
use the generated xml to update a multimedia component, that holds the xml file (this can also be done using core services - example code can be found here : Creating Binary Components using the Core Service)
finally, send a publish command from core services (example : http://blog.building-blocks.com/technical-tips/publishing-components-using-the-core-service-in-sdl-tridion-2011)

So, while both options are viable, but unless you have some specific requirement to use the core services, I suggest to use the first option, and create the sitemap XML using a template building block, as this is the most straight-forward way of achieving what you want.
Comment: Hi Harald,Thanks for providing the different approaches. I need to use core services as all our sitemap files for different regions are published in one common "sitemaps" folder.For this activity I will be required to access different publications. That was the reason I was thinking of using core services. Can we achieve similar functionality using C#TBB ?


Will Mirajane be able to handle the demon inside her?

Question: If the Tartaros people seal the demon inside Mira's body, will she be able to control it as she controls her other demons?
Comment: This is kinda speculative and invites opinion - not really a suitable kind of question for this site (good questions are those that have a definitive answer backed by an authoritative source). In particular in view of the answer probably coming up in future episodes of the manga.
Comment: isn't it already answered by new chapters...
Answer: I don't know what you mean by sealing the demon, but recent chapters showed that

 Mirajane is able to control any demons or demonic things at Tartaros except of the Etherious. Including the demon they wanted to turn her into or the device they used to turn her into a demon.
Answer: It doesen't really matter if she will or she will not be able to control all her inner demons, as long as there are enemies powerful enough, that might not be a problem... and for the sake of the show, she shouldn't controll all her inner demons... because she will always have enough dangerous demons inside her... not sure if there will be enough enemies for them all...
Oh, and I'm curious what kind of creatures will Lisana take over? Maybe a dragon?


External GFCI Won't Reset

Question: Last night we had a good rain storm and an exterior GFCI outlet tripped. That outlet is controlled by a switch in my foyer and is used to turn walkway lights on or off. The test button of the outlet is depressed, and pressing the reset button doesn't do anything. It just springs back when pushed. The light on the GFCI outlet is illuminated. I checked the circuit breaker and it wasn't tripped, but I turned it off and back on anyway but that didn't change anything. Since this is an exterior outlet controlled by a switch I don't believe that there's anything downstream from it.
Comment: It's possible that the outlet itself went bad. It does happen.
Comment: @FreeMan After my basic look around that was my guess but I figured it was a good idea to double check.
Answer: There are really only two likely possibilities here:

Broken GFCI

Repeated trips, dirt, water damage, insects, loose connections leading to arcing - there are a ton of reasons why a complex electronic device like a GFCI can fail. They are designed to fail safe when possible - i.e., off rather than on. If the GFCI has truly failed, the only fix is to replace it.
If you have to replace it, you may want to consider an inside location so that the outside receptacle is a simple receptacle and therefore less likely to fail due to weather and other "outside" problems. One possibility is to replace the switch with a GFCI switch like this one:

and then you can use a simple weather-resistant receptacle outside. Whatever you do, make sure you have a good in-use cover over the receptacle.

Water

It is quite possible that water got into the GFCI/receptacle in a way that it causes a ground-fault (which is why the GFCI won't reset) and doesn't quickly dry out. If that's the case, you can either remove it to dry it out or just wait a day or two. If after it dries out, everything works properly (TEST/RESET work and power only when the GFCI is not tested or tripped) then you are fine. In other words, the GFCI may simply be doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing.
Comment: After yesterday's storm we're getting some decent wind today so I have the cover up to see if airing it out helps. If not, a trip to pickup a replacement is next. Thanks
Comment: Replaced the receptacle and we're good. Thanks
Answer: STOP.  GFCIs don't just protect the 2 sockets.  They can also protect wiring attached to them, and it's generally smart to use that feature to protect downline wiring, so you need fewer GFCI devices.  A fault in that wiring will cause the GFCI to trip, and that is working as intended.
So you can never condemn a GFCI until you pull it out and disconnect all wires on the "LOAD" terminals.  Otherwise you're doing the equivalent of testing a smoke detector in a smoke-filled room.
If the GFCI behaves properly after the "Load" wires are removed, then the GFCI is doing its job, and there's a genuine ground fault in the downline wiring. Detecting that is why you installed a GFCI, so now you can fix it without having to attend a funeral first :)
My great-great grandfather never installed a GFCI outside in the weather.  So I advise manassehkatz's strategy of "move the GFCI indoors".
Comment: But easy enough to check - turn off the breaker, pull the GFCI out. If only LINE wires then this is a moot point. But if there are LOAD wires - perhaps to another receptacle further down the wall - then this may be a key piece.
Comment: I don't believe that there's anything downstream on this receptacle. As I mentioned, it's controlled by a switch, and nothing else turns on/off when I turn the switch on/off.

External GFCI Won't Reset


Can I use a normal 240v weatherproof on/off switch for an electric fence cut out?

Question: A normal mains switch can be much cheaper and you could have a light to show when its on
Answer: If it switches the mains power supply to the fence charger, yes, of course.
If you are using it to switch the energized fence wire, no of course not - that's generally tens of kilovolts, and far exceeds the rating of the switch.
Answer: Depends on the voltage output of the electric fence charger.
Given the ranch systems I've run in the past, arc-over in the switch to ground in damp weather is probably a given and so I'd never have considered it. And unless that's a neon light with a resistor that can take the voltage and limit the current properly, it will soon go bye-bye.
If you don't mind getting zapped, you might try it .
There's a reason that electric fence equipment isn't cheaper.
Note: Question has been changed. Originally sounded the OP wanted to use it as the high voltage disconnect.
Comment: I (still) read it as unclear what is intended to be switched, which is why I answered both the way it could work and the way it won't.
Comment: Roger on the unclear. You caught it both coming and going instead of only going. I've seen some pretty odd stuff rigged up, the kind that bites in damp weather when you grab the supposed handle. Long live Ranchtech Engineering.


Can I use a 20A weather/tamper resistant receptacle on a 20A circuit with 15A receptacles?

Question: I want to install an exterior receptacle outside of my walk-out basement. There is a 20A circuit which ends in a spot exactly where I would want to go through the wall to install the mounting block/exterior receptacle (i.e. I could easily tap into the circuit right there). There are 15A receptacles on this 20A circuit inside the house which I believe is fine. If I tap into this circuit outside am I ok to use a 20A weather/tamper resistant receptacle? Thanks in advance.
Comment: That's exactly what you _should_ use. What's your specific concern?
Answer: Yes you can use a 20 amp weather rated receptacle if the circuit is GFCI protected.
If the circuit is not GFCI protected it will need to be a GFCI receptacle and the cover needs to be an inuse type or heavy duty type.
It is code legal to put 15 amp receptacles on a 20 amp circuit and 20 amp receptacles.  See table 210.21.B.3
You can not put a 20 on a 15 amp circuit though and GFCI protection is required outside and normally a inuse or heavy duty cover if in a wet location (a covered porch may allow a standard cover if not a wet location)
Comment: Hit all the points +
Answer: There is a ton of confusion on this, because the general rule is: Receptacle sizes must exactly match breaker size. But there are actually quite a few exceptions. The relevant exception here is probably the most common:

A 20A circuit may have any number of 15A and/or 20A receptacles.

The only exception is that a 20A circuit with only one receptacle must have a 20A receptacle.
This is allowed because, among other reasons, the guts of a 15A receptacle are designed to handle 20A passing through - and in fact could have 20A usage simply from the 2 receptacles in a standard duplex receptacle - e.g., a 12A heater on one receptacle and an 8A tool or appliance on the other receptacle. Really only the the prong configuration is different.
But you can't put 20A receptacles on a 15A circuit. If you did that and someone plugged in a 20A device (or 16A continuous) then you would overload the wiring just from one device functioning properly, which would be a bad thing.
15A receptacles are far more common in residential construction, simply because 15A devices are far more common in residential usage. Even the devices where that 33% increase in available power (from 1,800 W to 2,400 W short term, or 1,440 W to 1,920 W continuous usage for 120V (nominal) 15A and 20A circuits) would be really helpful, like portable heaters, are almost 100% sold as 15A devices (12A continuous) because that guarantees compatibility with older homes that have few, if any, 20A receptacles installed. I have seen some larger Uninterruptible Power Supplies (aka battery backups) that require a 20A circuit and occasionally some power tools. But standard vacuum cleaners, computers, TVs, portable heaters, kitchen appliances, hair dryers, lights, etc. - all 15A NEMA 5-15 connectors.
Using 15A receptacles "everywhere" makes things easier for electricians - just stock one item on the truck instead of two. But the 20A receptacles are readily available at both big box stores and electrical supply houses.
Comment: No, the receptacle in this case doesn't have to match.


Why do the photos on my iPhone 7 seem to be losing quality?

Question: The photo quality is my iPhone 7 is very low. I found out that this may be because I switched on "iCloud Photo Library" a few months earlier, and "Optimize IPhone Store" was selected. Does doing so move all PREVIOUS photos to cloud, and replace them with low-res photos?
Comment: I'd be interested in an edit that shows how much free space you have on your device, how much space on the device photos take up and how large the iCloud library is. Also - can you make the loss of quality happen with a new photo you take today?
Answer: The answer is in the Optimize iPhone Storage setting.
When enabled, only thumbnails of photos are stored in local storage. By viewing a photo, you are downloading a compressed version from iCloud. There is no quality loss, since the original photos are still accessible by loading them one by one or turning this optimization off.
I believe that iCloud Photo Library uses some kind of lossy compression.
Comment: The full version is actually available even without turning "Optimize storage" off. If you zoom in enough to need full resolution or try to edit the photo the full version will be downloaded (albeit sometimes at a speed that brings me back to 1995) and displayed. But yes, this may explain a perceived degradation in quality if one does waits for the version of appropriate resolution to download.
Answer: Here's a fix that worked for me.
Keep in mind: Although the screenshots are in Danish, the instructions below are in English, and the placement of the marked settings are the same in both English and Danish running iOS 12.2.

Go to "Settings" in your iPhone. Scroll down until you find "Photos". Tap it (Marked with a red circle in the following picture)

Now, you should see the following screen. Tap on "Download and Keep Originals" (Marked with a red circle in the following picture)

Scroll down until you find a setting called "Keep Originals". Tap it. (Marked with a red circle in the following picture)

Go back to "Settings" by tapping on the arrow in the upper left corner. (Marked with a green circle in the following picture)

Now you should see the following screen. Right under the "Photos" setting, you'll find a setting called "Camera". Tap it. (Marked with a red circle in the following picture)

Now you should see the following screen. Tap on "Formats" (Marked with a red circle in the following picture)

Now you should see the following screen. Tap on "Most Compatible" (Marked with a red circle in picture 6)

This should fix the issue :-)
Comment: +1 for the effort, but as this is an English only web site, it would be much better if you changed the setting on your phone to English and then took the screen shots. Your question *might* get removed due to the Danish, I'm not sure.
Comment: That is true :-) Also, you seem to have a duplicate image (#3 and #4). It might be best to have the green circle only on image 4. I have suggested an edit to your post which adds image descriptions and image hover tags, as well as blockquote formatting outlining for the images - for clarity
Comment: @Greenonline But most of the keywords are understable :)
Answer: I've seen no degradataion whatsoever by optimize and yes, the compression used is lossy, but I believe Apple keeps the actual screen resolution / print resolution in mind and does very light handed compression (as opposed to severe compression at high ratios that causes bad image quality.)
What do you see for the size of an exported image? You should be able to save off the images to Files / iCloud and then download them from the computer if you don't use an iOS tool like ViewEXIF to see the resolution (pixels) and size (KB/MB) of the images.
For me, when I need to do an operation like edit the photo and I have a reduced resolution size image (if it were added recently and I only have a placeholder), iOS shows me that it's downloading the full resolution image from the cloud so I can then share / export a good quality image.


How do HDR images differ from SDR images

Question: If I would like to convert hdr images to sdr, what values would be changed in the image data. So far i think ive understood that the bit depth has to be changed so for example from 12 bit to 8 bit you would divide by 16 (4096/256=16) and round up or down to quantasize the value. But is that it? Does luminance or chrominance or any other property of the image have to be changed? I think i found one source that said gamma stays the same at 2.4 while another source said that the gamma curve changes to better fit the extreme values. When i google this problem all i find are these functions used to tonemap the images but i cant find anything about how to use them.
Comment: Depends strongly on your source images, and to which standard they were created.
Answer: Normal HDR still images are using special transfer functions, either PQ or HLG. That is what HDR is, a new transfer function. 2.4 gamma is what is BT.1886 on perfect OLED display is for SDR transfer (same in BT.601, BT.709, BT.2020, only BT.2100 introduced PQ and HLG).
To convert to SDR you need to besides the obvious change of PQ transfer to sRGB or BT.1886
a) change BT.2020 primaries to BT.709 primaries, b) remove the matrix of BT.2020-ncl and change to full range bt.601 matrix in case of JPEG or change to R'G'B'.


Will major economies be able to repay their debt?

Question: According to The Economist, lots of major economies are in debt to the extent of it consuming most of the countries' GDP. And the whole system almost seems to resemble a Ponzi scheme at a macro level. I'm sure this is a gross simplification of how things work and I'm no economist by any measure. But at some point, wouldn't the debt of these countries grow beyond the expectation that it will ever be paid off? How is it there is so much worldwide debt without the whole system ready to implode?
Answer: Whether a country's debt is sustainable is a difficult question to answer. Bohn developped a framework for answering this question and the cited paper is a summary of much of its findings.
Henning Bohn, 2005.
"The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in the United States,"
CESifo Working Paper Series
1446, CESifo Group Munich.
Bohn proposes to estimate a fiscal reaction function to model a country's fiscal policy. He concludes that for a country's fiscal policy to be sustainable, it is sufficient that its primary balance is a (linear) increasing function of its lagged debt-GDP .
$pb_{it}= \alpha_i + \beta_i d_{it-1} + \delta_i X_{it} \ \ \ \ \  \beta_i>0$
($X_{it}$ is a vector of control variables)
There are however some problems with this framework. If for example does not exclude an ever increasing debt limit, which seems counter-intuitive. Some of these problems are resolved in Ghosh et. al. 2011 and non-linearities in a fiscal reaction function are added and they introduce the concept of fiscal space.
Atish R. Ghosh & Jun I. Kim & Enrique G. Mendoza & Jonathan D. Ostry & Mahvash S. Qureshi, 2011.
"Fiscal Fatigue, Fiscal Space and Debt Sustainability in Advanced Economies,"
NBER Working Papers
16782, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Yet, there are still some drawbacks to this approach. Japan is a country that has almost reached its debt limit but financial markets doe no seem to response to this fact. Therefore this framework as evolved from estimating these fiscal reaction functions to stochastic debt simulation. Celasun, Debrun and Ostry wrote a seminal paper on this procedure.
Oya Celasun & Xavier Debrun & Jonathan David Ostry, 2006.
"Primary Surplus Behavior and Risks to Fiscal Sustainability in Emerging Market Countries: A "Fan-Chart" Approach,"
IMF Working Papers
06/67, International Monetary Fund.
They for example calculate the probability that a country's debt-GDP ratio increases more than 10% in comparison to a baseline-year. But again, this does not answer some fundamental questions. If for example the indebtedness of a country does increase with 10% in 5 years, does this mean that fiscal policy was insustainable?
It should be clear now that determining the sustainability of a country's debt is difficult. In the end, it really all comes down to the fact that a country's fiscal policy is sustainable as long as institutions and individuals are willing to buy their debt instruments.
edit:
To answer your comment, I think the easiest concept to understand, it the one of fiscal space so I will try to explain that:
Assume a country's fiscal policy looks the following:
$pb_{t}= \alpha + \beta_1 d_{t-1}+ \beta_2 d_{t-1}^2 + \delta X_{it} $
In which $\beta_1>0>\beta_2$. This thus implies that a country's primary balance initially increases as debt increases to offset the debt accumulation but will decrease after a certain point, called fiscal fatigue. This fiscal fatigue implies a limit to the debt ratio a country could pay back. To see this, you have to look at the debt dynamics, (r-g) equals the interest rate-growth differential:
$\Delta d_t= (r-g) d_{t-1} -pb_t$
This equation explains how an increase in primary balance could counter debt accumulation. The debt limit, lets call it $d^m$ is the highest debt ratio for which the primary balance sufficies to hold the debt ratio constant. ($X_t$ is ignored):
$(r-g) d^m = pb= \alpha + \beta_1 d^m + \beta_2 d^{m2}$

After $d^m$, the primary balance will never be high enough to hold debt constant due to fiscal fatigue. Lenders to the government know this and thus will never buy debt securities after this point, causing a country to default.
 Fiscal space is now simply the difference between a country's current debt ratio and the debt limit and thus is a measure of the amount of fiscal maneouvrability a country has left before it will default.
Comment: @jameslk Generally speaking, the idea is that it is equally preferred for the debt holder to pay off an entire debt in the present OR to pay exactly the interest rate for infinite periods, given that the interest rate reflects the time discount preference (of the gov't in this case). You prefer having some fraction of money now than a slightly larger sum later. So at some point, if you borrow so much that you can't pay off the interest under current policy, then debt becomes a problem (and you have to resort to nasty stuff like printing money or something). Otherwise, you're okay.
Comment: Thanks for the detailed and well-cited answer! If I could upvote it, I would. It's a bit technical for me, being an outsider peering in. If you or any editors out there have the time to make it more friendly to newbies (i.e. pretend you're explaining this to your average child/teenager), I would greatly appreciate it!
Answer: For any country that issues its own currency, having a sovereign debt in its own currency is a choice. It can always be monetised. This will cause a one-off inflation episode, but it does lessen, or entirely remove, the national debt.
So for all countries with sovereign debt in currencies they themselves issue, then no amount of national debt is theoretically unsustainable, in that it can always be monetised. The wider economic, political and social implications of that inflation episode will rather depend on the amount of debt being monetised, as well as the scope and scale of any other complementary measures introduced at the same time.
Furthermore, any country can pass a law cancelling its outstanding debt. Or it can negotiate a partial cancellation with its creditors. Either of these things will make it more expensive for that country to borrow in the future.
Answer: The orthodox answer is that public debt spirals are never a problem, because a government can always issue new money to buy the debt off the market.
But this does not take into consideration how the private banking system works.  Say country X is suffocating from 1 trillion dollars in public debt.  1 trillion dollars is issued and used to buy the debt from secondary markets.  Is that the end of the story?  No, because when the government adds 1 trillion in base money to the economy the banking system will use that new base money to create bank money (say M2) and the M2 will be traded for even more debt.  The economy will have just traded public debt for private debt.
Comment: What do you mean by '...and the M2 will be traded for even more debt'. Even more debt for who?


What do I do with a 1 11/16" gap when installing a new pre-hung door?

Question: I am replacing a door with a pre-hung door including the jamb. The old door was 29 11/16" wide. The new pre-hung door is 28".  Is this too big of a gap?  Should I make it plumb on one side and make up the difference on the other side? Other threads suggest making up space on the handle side, but this is more space than than what other people were asking about. The trim is 2 1/2" so the gap would be covered.
Comment: Need more specifics.  The old door - 29 11/16" area ?  Area is 2 dimensions.  Did you mean width?  If so, is that the width of the inside of the jamb or the outside?  You mention a 2 1/2" gap though - so that does sound too small.
Comment: Related: http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/3550/how-do-i-install-a-pre-hung-door-in-a-rough-opening-thats-too-wide
Comment: Hi! It looks like you've accidentally created a couple of accounts. If you'd like to merge them (there are some [advantages](http://diy.stackexchange.com/help/why-register) to doing so), the instructions are [here](http://diy.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts). Welcome to the site!
Answer: I assume you have a two piece split jamb pre-hung door. It's expected that these will be smaller than the rough opening, you need room to make the door plumb and level. Here's the install steps off the top of my head and my own personal best practice:

Check your width of the rough opening to ensure the trim will cover any gaps left, this is the main concern with the width. If the gap is over an inch, you can add a plywood filler strip to the side opposite of the hinges. A 3/4" to 1" gap is useful for adjusting plumb.
Check the plumb of the rough opening to determine if the door needs to sit on one side or another, and if it needs to be pulled out from the top. The first priority is to roughly identify where the top hinge needs to be to allow the rest of the door to remain plumb and level.
Separate the two parts of the door (along the split jamb) and set aside the half without the door attached.
Place the door in the rough opening, add shims to the top to make it level, and screw the top of the door into the header with trim head screws through the shims.
Check the hinge side of the jamb for plumb in both directions (side to side and in/out) with a long level or a plumb bob, add shims near the hinges where necessary (often installers will try to get the hinge side as tight to the rough framing as possible) and screw the jamb through the shims into the jack stud. You'll want a few screws near the top hinge for stability. Work from the top to the bottom of the hinge side of the door, double checking for plumb as you go.
Close the door, add shims until the gap between the door and jamb is even. You can double check for level, but the priority on this side is a consistent gap. You want to door to strike the stop at the same time on the top, middle, and bottom. Screw the jamb through the shims into the jack stud from top to bottom, double checking the gap between the door and jamb/stop as you go.
Cut off any shims that protrude past the finished wall surface.
Insert the second half of the split jamb. Finish nail through the stop to hold it in place, add a few trim head screws where your shims were located. This piece carries no load, so you don't need much.
Finish nail through the trim on both sides of the door to hold it tight to the wall surface.
Spackle, caulk, and paint.
Install door knob, strike plate, and any other hardware.
Comment: Excellent procedure, my only differences would be swapping-out one of the top hinge's jam-side screws for a 3" deck-screw, and I only remove the trim and the door itself, I don't split the jam.


Why do French banks push hard that customers open a savings account?

Question: In France account managers often offer their costumers that they open a savings account (Livret A as they call) on top of the checking account. From my point of view, those employees seem to have pressure in doing so, since they will ask that every time you meet them if you don't have. The banks even offer gifts to those who do. Given that it does not appear that they will have any chance to recover the money they spend to get customers to open these accounts (there are no fees and they have to pay out the interests, even if very small), why do banks have any interest of offering that? Does the balance on savings accounts in France is subject to different regulations than that on checking accounts, thus they can make more money like that?
Comment: Just a comment as I don't know about France: here in Germany a savings account means for the bank that they can count on having this money long term: if you want to withdraw money you have to give notice in advance (how long is set in the savings contract - could be anywhere from 3 months to several years. E.g. I used to have one with 48 months = 4 years notice period as a kid. This is often combined with allowing small withdrawals without notice, and typically you can withdraw also large amounts but that is subject to a fee and interest loss due to not having given notice x months ago).
Comment: @cbeleites My manager said that I don't have any notice on my savings account. It works like a checking account except that it is not directly accessible by checks or debit card, the balance must be moved (for free) to the checking account before being used.
Comment: Aha. I have one account that works similarly (you can put money there from everywhere but withdraw only to a specified account) - this is a money account tied to a shares + bonds depot (not a savings account, though). It may be that those accounts are cheaper in management for the bank as fraud detection is less of an issue (because withdrawals leave the money with you) - but this is pure guesswork.
Answer: I don't think this is a French thing.  It's like this everywhere.  Banks always want people to open accounts of every type.  A person with a checking account should be easy to sell on a savings account at the same institution.

Given that it does not appear that they will have any chance to recover the money they spend to get customers to open these accounts (there are no fees and they have to pay out the interests, even if very small)

Oh, they recover it.  Banks make money by having deposits that they can use to lend out.  They do pay interest on deposits, but not as much as they earn on your money.  If they persuade you to have a savings account in addition to your checking account, then you might find it convenient and then move your money out of a different institution into their savings account.  Or you might stop hoarding it under your mattress.  Or whatever.  More money in their accounts means more profit for them.
I don't know whether banks make more profit per dollar in savings or checking accounts.  I see banks pushing for both.  I think they simply view more accounts as a good thing because it can lead to more total savings in their institution.  That's how they make money.
Comment: Savings account usually offer a marginally better amount of ROI % but come with restrictions as having to keep a certain amount and above as initial deposit and being bound by a long term commitment  where the money should be "locked-in". So yeah for the trade-off in extra percent offered, savings account are a much better deal for the banks.
Comment: Still, why does the bank wants to keep my balance in the savings instead of the checking account? If I leave in the checking account they don't have to pay interest while in the savings account they pay it (even if little). Besides the commercial costs of opening the savings account makes it even less interesting to the bank to have the trouble of opening one.
Answer: The Livret A is a very specific product. It's tax-exempt and would historically not be available through regular banks. Commercial banks can now offer it but they only collect the money on behalf of the Caisse des dépôts (CDC). The CDC then pays interest to the savers and a commission for the bank. The commission is baked into the system, not charged to the customer directly but since the interest rate is set centrally, banks cannot compete on that. So this is risk-free money for them (but on the flip side it does not help them meet capital adequacy requirements). Other savings account or products have different rules.
Another angle to consider is that a livret A was historically very attractive for consumers (and was certainly perceived as such) so that many people would have a checking account at a regular bank and another account at the Caisse d'épargne or the Banque postale just to open a livret A. For commercial banks, the alternative therefore isn't having your money on your checking account vs. your livret A or another savings account, it was having your money on a livret A they administer vs. seeing you run away to another institution. There is also a cap on the livret A and you're not allowed to save more money by opening several of them at different banks.
At the same time banks have been complaining that the decrease of the interest rate (and consequently of their commission) makes the whole scheme a lot less interesting for them. For what it's worth, I recently (re)opened a bank account in France after living abroad for a long time and the customer advisor did not seem particularly interested in pushing a livret A.
Comment: Thanks for the answer. Is the commission of the CDC higher than the potential profit of the balance being available directly to the bank through the checking account? If not, why would the bank want to have the balance in the savings account rather than the checking account?
Comment: @GabrielDiego The commission is based on the interest rate so I would guess that it roughly tracks potential profits but I don't really know. Another part of the equation is that a *Livret A* was historically very attractive for customers so banks might be trying to keep their money in-house instead of opening a *livret A* elsewhere (like the *Caisse d'épargne*, which has been offering them for decades). But banks have been complaining that the lowering of the interest rate makes the whole scheme a lot less interesting for them so maybe they will end up doing exactly what you suggest.
Comment: @GabrielDiego Thanks for your comment in any case, I will try to expand on this in the answer!
Comment: Most banks give a very similar interest rate (peanuts). I would not going to the trouble of opening an account on another bank to get maybe 10€ more per year, if any, on a 10000€ balance. Keeping on the current bank the same balance would yield around 75€ a year, also peanuts, barely above inflation.
Comment: @GabrielDiego Which banks now? Checking accounts in France typically do not pay a low interest, they pay no interest at all! Again, all this seems to result from the retail market as it was a few years ago, that's why I wrote "historically". Obviously it feels very different with an interest rate at 0.75%...
Answer: I have worked for BNP (BNP PARIBAS) a french bank.
From my experience it is the easiest sale to make when working for a bank.
Because saving is sold as a long term investment your client is not likely to close the account any time soon. From this product on you could open a broker account if the client wants to take more risks ( yhea yet another sale). If the client is very keen on no risks, there are insurance products (they make plenty of money from insurance) or callable investments that you can propose.
Retail banking works by attracting a maximum number of people and selling them a maximum amount of product.
To answer you question is it profitable?
I am sure it is not ( right now your savings account costs the bank money because of super low rates in the EU). I think it is all about increasing or maintaining market-share that you see some banks offering some cash just for opening an account.
At the moment we have to sell credit cards to people that is where banks make good money.
If you would like me to go more in depth on a specific subject i mentioned here just ask. Hope it helped.
Comment: Hi, thanks for the answer, it was very useful for me. How much does the bank pay you for opening a Livret A?
Comment: nothing again, i would make bonus based on the given numer of sales of a specific product they want to puch that month/week/ quarter. could be home insurance, car insurance (any type of insurance) or credit cards or other types of credit, investment products. anything they sell really.

for my boss the livret A was a "Sale' but not seen a core sale as in it would not matter if you sold 50 or 0 to your or his numbers.
Comment: This means that you have to sell as many different products as possible, but the number of sales on each individual product does not matter? Like one Livret A plus one insurance counts more than ten insurances? This should make sense since my account managers (all the different ones I saw) really wanted to open me a Livret A. I guess that this was to increase the diversity on their sales books.
Comment: Livret A is a "Sticky product" once you open it very few people will close it. that means you will be a costumer for a longer period.

I guess it is better to sell 10 insurance then one livret and one insurance. Again it does depend on what your account manager needs to sell that week.
Livret A and Insurance are all handy products but sometimes there is a sales incentive for the manager to put more effort into selling you a specific product. If I where you I would just ask him if this is the case. As in are you incentivised to sell me this specific product now?


When should one use the comma versus the semicolon, and vice versa?

Question: I cannot understand the difference between the comma and semicolon. Can you please clarify?
Comment: Similar to [this question](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1183/colons-and-semi-colons).
Comment: Similar yeah, in that semicolons are involved, but an *exact duplicate* (as someone has stated as his vote-to-close reason)? Hardly.
Comment: Mandatory oatmeal link http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
Comment: I like this resource: http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Semicolons.html
Answer: From eHow:
Comma (,)
1) Use a comma to separate 2 independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction such as and, but and or. The key here is to have 2 subject verb pairs.

Example: The students reviewed for the exam, and the teacher
  corrected the term papers.

In this example we have 2 subject verb pairs: "students reviewed" and "teacher corrected."

Example: The teacher corrected the
  papers and entered the grades in the
  grade book.

In this example we use the coordinating conjunction "and" but have 1 subject and 2 verbs: "teacher corrected, entered"; therefore, no comma is used.
2) Use a comma to separate items in a series to avoid ambiguous meaning.

Example: Uncle willed me his property,
  houses, and warehouses.

In this example, we mean that uncle willed me 3 items--his houses, warehouses, and property.

Example: Uncle willed me his property,
  houses and warehouses.

In this example, we mean that uncle willed me 2 items--all his property, which consisted of houses and warehouses.
3) Use a comma with introductory elements such as subordinating clauses that come at the beginning of the sentence.

Example: Because the river had
  flooded, the school closed for the
  week.

The introductory element, or subordinating clause is "because the river had flooded." It is introduced with the subordinating conjunction "because."

Example: The school closed for the
  week because the river had flooded.

In this example the subordinating clause is at the end of the sentence so we do not use a comma.
Semicolon (;)
1) Use a semicolon to separate 2 independent clauses in a sentence, closely related, with no coordinating conjunction.

Example: The students reviewed for the
  exam; the teacher corrected the
  papers.
Example: The candidates spoke to the
  crowds during Election Day; each
  candidate spoke passionately about the
  fate of the country.

2) Use a semicolon to separate items in a series where the series themselves contain commas.

Example: We visited our relatives in
  Albany, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and
  Washington, D.C.
Comment: You wrote comma but inserted a period in your "Comma" header. ;)
Comment: @ladenedge: Why don't you sue me? If this is illegal, then the majority of the users becomes convicted. I'm giving the source at the top of my answer, and I don't see why it is illegal to share information which was posted openly on another site. I'm not exposing "official secrets", yet I'm giving a useful answer with citation.
Comment: Copying entire pages like this doesn't seem fair to eHow or its author, and - because I doubt it qualifies as fair use - it's probably illegal.
Comment: @mipadi: Aah, it was a tiring day. Thanks for pointing out :)
Comment: Obviously HG Wells hadn't come across the (2016 update) advice from Lisa Newcomb at Purdue in his _Time Machine_: "... [T]he jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue." Or perhaps he had but didn't consider himself bound by non-essential mundane constraints.
Answer: You use a semicolon (<code>;</code>) to create a compound sentence made of two complete sentences. For example: John went to school; today was his first day. is equivalent to John went to school. Today was his first day. and so is correct.
Use of a semicolon is inappropriate in any other case. The following is incorrect: Because John went to school; Sally was left home alone. because if we split into two sentences, Because John went to school. Sally was left home alone., the first is a sentence fragment.
In addition, use of a comma to separate two complete sentences (John went to school, today was his first day.) is inappropriate and is called a comma splice.
Comment: You have to use it there, or you *can* use it there?
Answer: The first is a comma, which is just a pause that off-sets a phrase. The second is a semi-colon, "used to indicate a major division in a sentence where a more distinct separation is felt between clauses or items on a list than is indicated by a comma, as between the two clauses of a compound sentence."
Comment: The bigger problem for me is trying to remember the difference of usages between semi-colon ( ";" ) and colon ( ":" ). The thing to remember about commas, is that they typically have something that is not structurally necessary to the sentence in them.
Comment: A sentence is, at base, a noun (N) and a verb (V). Everything else is built off that structure. ie, John sits = (John|N)+(sits|V). If you introduce a colon, it could be for this, "John sits: Jane walks away" = (N+V:N+V+A*). But to introduce a semi-colon it would be for "John sits; the world spinning." (the semi-colon join an N+V and some other phrase) (*A=adverb)


How does conservation of energy work?

Question: I understand that the law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change from one form to another.
This means that the total energy before a certain event that involves getting work done, will be the same after the event is over.
So lets say i have an object of mass $M$ and i put it on the palm of my hand and i move it up by a distance of $H$ with a constant velocity $V_1$ That means that when i stop lifting the object after reaching the desired height, all the kinetic energy $\frac {MV_1^2}2$ would have been transformed to gravitational potential energy $MgH$ but since the law of conservation of energy does not take time under consideration, that would mean that if I try lifting the object again for the same distance but with greater velocity $V_2$ (not great enough for the object to leave my hand after i stop) then the kinetic energy of the object would be $\frac {MV_2^2}2$ which is greater than what it was the first time. however, the gravitational potential energy would still remain the same in both cases. So where did the extra energy go?
Comment: The extra energy is spent by your body on accelerating your hand quicker
Answer: The answer is to do with what happens when you stop moving the object upwards.  You say that the upwards velocity is 'low enough that it does not leave your hand': the only value of velocity for which that is true is $0$.  What this means is that, if at time $t_0$ the object is being moved upwards with velocity $v_0$ and is at $h_0$, and you suddenly stop pushing on it, then it will, of course, continue upwards with a velocity $v(t) = v_0 - g(t-t_0)$ and height $h(t) = h_0 + v_0 (t- t_0) - g(t-t_0)^2/2$.
Well, you can solve these equations for the maximum height reached, which is $h_0 + v_0^2/(2g)$.  And not surprisingly there is just enough extra potential energy there to account for the kinetic energy it had at $t_0$.
Comment: This does not make sense. If i grab an object, lets say a cup, and i take five minutes lifting it to a distance of 50 cm then it would not leave my hand when i stop. if i lift the same cup for the same distance and i only spent 3 minutes this time, the velocity wold be higher than the first time, but it won't be high enough for it to leave my hand right?
Comment: @user3769877: the reason it doesn't leave your hand is because, at the top of the lift, you accelerated your hand downwards with an acceleration whose absolute value is less than $g$ (assuming the object is just resting on your hand).  At the very top of the lift the upward velocity was just $0$.  During the period of the acceleration, the force exerted on your hand by the object is $m(g-a(t))$, where $a(t)$ is acceleration (+ve down), and if you integrate this suitably you'll find the same difference in work as above.  If the acceleration is greater than $g$ then you have thrown the object.
Answer: If you lift a book, then you are doing work on it. You are actually spending work on raising it's kinetic energy and on lifting it up.
$$U=K+W$$
When you reach some height and stop, then all the work done is what determines your height. If you move your hand faster in order to speed up the book to a larger kinetic energy, then you've spent more work on that and can spent less work on the lifting. In total the final height and therefore potential energy and therefore the sum of kinetic energy reached and further work done by your hand is the same.
If you happen to do so much work on the book to speed it up, that it's kinetic energy is larger than the potential energy that fits the desired height, then the book will lift off from your hand and fly a bit higher when you stop, to indeed reach this height.

How does conservation of energy work?


Are there no threats and only benefits for using hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

Question: Following this story and many others, I read articles that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can help people with brain damage but can also help healthy people. I heard that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can improve athletic performance as well as cognitive process of healthy people. Are there any proven research that shows this? Is it totally safe and has only benefits and no threats for healthy people? What is the minimum time for improving your brain and performance and does it last forever?
Comment: I think that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is the correct term you're looking for, not pressure cabinet.  I'd edit it to make sure people know what you're asking about.
Comment: @DoctorWhom FYI, anyone can edit posts. Until you have enough rep your edits will have to be approved, but you can still do it.
Comment: Ah thx, wasn't sure how that worked.
Answer: While hyperbaric oxygen therapy does have many benefits, there are potential issues. According to John Hopkins University Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can lead to lung damage, fluid buildup in the ears and vision changes. While these are not common, they can occur from the high pressure that the body is experiencing. A healthy person without indications for its use may want to avoid it, but in reality they will likely be fine as long as the treatment isn't long and they don't have any contraindications for it.
link to John Hopkins article: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/physical_medicine_and_rehabilitation/complications_of_hyperbaric_oxygen_treatment_134,148/


Creating multiple PWA instances in the same farm

Question: I need to provision multiple PWA instances in the same farm. My business requirement is, i have more than 100 branches and i suppose to create an individual PWA instance per each branch, but i need to know what is the best practice of this ? What about the performance, maintenance effect and side effects of provisioning more than 100 PWA instances in the same farm ? or else Can i mange all the projects of more than 100 branches in one PWA instance ? I am using Project Server 2013 and SharePoint 2013. I am using the project server through SharePoint. Please someone help me to proceed. Any guide is appreciated.
Answer: You can create multiple PWA instances in project server but as per the MSFT recommendation, you should provision the one PWA in one content DB. So, we are talking about 100 Content DB here.

When you create a new Project Web App site in conjunction with a new
  site collection, we recommend that you use a separate SharePoint
  Server 2013 content database for the Project Web App site and its
  associated project workspaces.
  Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection (Project Server 2013)

Now for performance, you have to evaluate the your capacity planning (which include # of user, resources, Server Hardware etc) as Pholpar mentioned.
Apart from this here are some Pros and Cons.
Cons:

A single PWA instance helps to manage resources at the enterprise
level. The accurate availability of resources cannot not be measured
if the same resource is a part of multiple instances.
Every PWA instance has certain timer jobs, which run regularly. If
there is more than one PWA instance in the farm, system has to
process more timer jobs than it processes with single PWA instance.
Multiple AD and Group Sync processes are required for multiple PWA
instances. If OLAP cubes are used, then a cube building process is
required for each and every PWA instance.
If there is more than one PWA instance in the farm, duplicate efforts
are required for taking backup of Project Server databases, Project
plans, and other items, such as Eglobal, Security Backup, and
Resources backup, etc. Same requirement is applicable for the restore
process.
SQL Server maintenance is required for all databases of PWA. Multiple
instances will have multiple project server databases. Hence, all of
them need to be maintained regularly.
Test, QA, and/or Development Environment refresh can be time
consuming, if there is more than 1 PWA instance.
Database migration of the environment to a newer version will take
more time for multiple PWA instances vs. a single PWA instance.
More effort is required to maintain multiple PWA instances than
maintaining just one PWA instance.

Pros:

If a single environment would have many thousands of users, hundreds
of Custom Fields, many Look Up tables, and thousands of project
plans, it may be best broken up into business unit PWA instances.
Multiple instances create multiple site collections. Managing site
collections which are smaller in size is easier than maintaining a
single large site collection.
Different business units may require different Timesheet units, such
as Columns and Reporting. A single PWA instance cannot accommodate
this requirement.
Organizational requirements demand that one or more PWA instances be
separated from others. By definition, this means that the resource
pools are separate and unaware of each other and also that the
resources from one pool are never used in the resource pools of the
others.

Advantages to a single PWA instance over multiple PWA instances
Answer: Although you can provision multiple PWA instances in the same farm, I don't think it would be a great idea (or even technically possible with an acceptable performance) to provision 100 instances. For each instance you need to have a single project database, and as a best practice I would recommend a separate SharePoint content database per PWA as well, that is just another 100 databases. Do you really want to maintain 200+ databases for a single farm?
It is not clear, what you on a branch mean, however it would be nice to know the expected number of projects, the number of users / resources, and if they have a common base, or should be really kept separately, that means probably really a separate PWA instance.
I assume you have already seen that, but I suggest you to read the pages about the capacity planning for Project Server on TechNet, especially this one.
Comment: thank you very much for the answer Pholpar. In my scenario branch means office. Geographically separated 100 offices all over the country. Each office should be provided the facility to manage project through sharepoint


Is the smearing growing in the USA?

Question: Is the smearing growing in the USA (in the last decades/centuries)? Or at least the perception about smear campaigns?
Comment: I'm going to fall back on my favorite example when these types of claims are raised: Look at the details of Hamilton/Burr feud (culminating in the duel resulting in one killing the other) and Hamilton's overall political career, before claiming that somehow things were wholly more civilized in the past in US politics.
Answer: Not really.  Political campaigns used to be much nastier than they are today.  The primary difference seems to be that with modern technology it is possible to hear such things direct from the candidates.  A hundred years ago, you would have read it in a newspaper and the newspaper would more likely be the source than the candidate.
Try doing an internet search on "history of political slander".  Google has quite a few results.
Example source:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201112/political-slander-is-nothing-new
That gives examples from the elections of the two Presidents Adams.  Both engaged in quite a bit of mud-slinging with their opponents--and that was 1824 or earlier.
If anything, modern elections are much more polite.  The modern media is less explicitly partisan (although they may be biased).  In 1860, people knew which newspapers were Republican and which were Democrat.  They achieved balance by usually having at least one of each.  Fox News and MSNBC were the rule back then, not the exception.
Answer: As far as I know, nobody has yet developed an impartial metric for the negativity and untruthfulness of campaign statements. Indeed it's difficult to see how anyone could do it objectively. However there does exist evidence that the US electorate is generally getting more partisan, both in terms of districts, and in terms of how liberal or conservative the supporters (and politicians) of both major parties are.
There is also evidence that prior political beliefs affect how people interpret the favourability and veracity of news stories. It might be putting two and two together and coming up with five, but this would at least support an increased perception of smear campaigning (people feel more strongly about candidates, so negative stories are viewed as smears by the opposition rather than simple reporting).
Comment: *"As far as I know, nobody has yet developed an impartial metric for the negativity and untruthfulness of campaign statements"*: [Politifact.com](http://www.politifact.com/) does a pretty good attempt at quantifying truthfulness of US-politicians statements. However, it doesn't focus specifically on statements about other politicians.
Comment: @Philipp - And even if it did, how would they quantify the truthfulness of statements like "My opponent is a racist bigot" or "My opponent is unfit for office"?  Definitely negative, but they don't really have a truth value the way that "My opponent steals candy from babies" does.
Comment: @Philipp - Also, you might want to accept or decline [your moderator nomination](http://meta.politics.stackexchange.com/a/2713/2130)

Is the smearing growing in the USA?


Protecting the BIOS from malware

Question: The BIOS operates at a lower level than the OS, so antivirus software cannot scan it.
Is there any other security software that we should use to protect the BIOS?
Comment: What are you worried about protecting _against_?
Comment: Against malware!
Comment: Anti-malware can prevent writes to the BIOS, is that what you mean?
Comment: possible duplicate of [Is it possible for malware to be in the BIOS or in hardware?](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/85801/is-it-possible-for-malware-to-be-in-the-bios-or-in-hardware)
Answer: I would suggest that you look into the direction of Trusted Computing. It won't "defend" you, but it might help you ensure that you are booting in a known/secure environment.
There is a load of information available here, just search for TXT and trusted computing.
But for starters, you can ensure this by using a platform with a TPM and Intel TXT, then go a step further by protecting yourself from evil-maid attacks using something like
tboot.
You can also run chipsec on your platform, to run an assessment of your platform. Chipsec is well presented in those 2 presentations:

Platform Security Assessmentwith CHIPSEC
CHIPSEC Platform Security Assessment Framework
Answer: Not true exactly - bios can be overwritten. This is how bios upgrade tools work.
Another minor correction: the BIOS doesn't operate on a lower level than the OS, at least on modern systems. That would mean that the OS uses BIOS API calls to handle the hardware. But it is not so, the OSes have a nearly bios-independent software stack. The last well-known OS which interacted with BIOS, was WindowsME. The last well-known OS which used its nearly whole functionality through BIOS calls was DOS. (Although a minimal interaction between BIOS and the OSes survives until now.)
BIOS is practically a firmware, which loads into the (yet real-mode) memory at the beginning of the boot process. Its code is on a flash memory chip soldered onto the mainboard.
This flash ROM can be overwritten, although only a non-trivial, undocumented, and deeply vendor-dependent way. In most cases there is also encryption-based protection on it. These are the "defensive lines" of the hardware (motherboard) vendors, which protects against the exact kinds of malware that you are asking about.
Thus, in my opinion, the possibility that a random hacker writes a malware (or extend an already existing one) with a bios-hacking functionality, is practically negligible - assuming that we are talking from independent nice tries without government support.
The situation is much worse if we consider also the power of governments. They don't need to crack the encryption of BIOS and the undocumented overwriting protocol, in many cases they can "solve" their problem with the cooperation of the motherboard vendor. This is especially true if the vendor is in their country, or in an allied country, and they have the resources to implement software which requires the yearlong cooperation of hundreds of programmers.
For example, the well-known Stuxnet malware used these business secrets of multiple hardware vendors, although it overwrote not the BIOS flash, but a network card firmware - somehow exactly that type of NIC firmware which was used on the computers of the Iranian nuclear project (and then also the firmware of some uranium-enriching centrifuges).
Similar malware could also be developed for BIOS overwrites, but it is very highly vendor-dependent and requires the (intentional or unintentional) cooperation of the motherboard vendor.
Against an active governmental BIOS-overwriting attack probably you can't defend yourself. Against a less pervasive attack, maybe you can protect yourself through the extended usage of firewalls, virtualization and other high-resource security measurements.
Against the "common" malwares distributed everywhere on the net, there is no need for extra measurements (assuming that your motherboard vendor doesn't any standard security measures).

Protecting the BIOS from malware


How to access query string params in a template?

Question: I need to access the query string params in a template. How can I access these variables?
http://example.com/search.php?size=large&color=red&page=1
Answer: You can use PHP or plugin GET_POST_Var
<code>color {exp:get_post_var type='get' var='color'}
page {exp:get_post_var type='get' var='page'}
size {exp:get_post_var type='get' var='size'}
</code>
Comment: yes, you right - forgot that I'm usually use my version of this plugin where I add security clean + small modification like default values for variables. I will push it on github today, and redo the links in post.
Comment: Keep in mind that this plugin does not escape or prep the values for any particular use in markup or tags.
Answer: Two other options:
You can use the excellent Mo' Variables plugin to grab GET and POST information along with a number of other variables.
If you're already using Stash on the site you can also use {exp:stash:get} with the dynamic="yes" parameter to look for POST and GET info.
Comment: I was looking for something that was natively supported by Expression Engine. Is there a way that doesn't require plugins?
Comment: The only thing that would be natively supported by EE would be to use PHP and set the template to allow PHP. There aren't any native template tags that let you grab the PHP superglobals. We use the Mo' Variables plugin on a large number of sites and it's always worked really well.
Comment: Keep in mind that this add-on does not escape or prep the values for any particular use in markup or tags. It does allow for XSS filtering, but void of the entire context of where you are using it. Like the other solution, it does not prep for use in markup either, such as forms.
Comment: Great point - thanks for jumping in with that info Derek.
Comment: Hi Derek - I'm coming back around to this thread and wondering if you have any recommendations for other solutions that could be used to pass a get variable into either a form or a tag parameter without just using straight PHP in the template. If we write a plugin is it sufficient to use the input class instead of just using the xss_clean method?
Answer: There's even a native global variable: {current_query_string}. EE > 2.7.0


I'm a Sri Lankan citizen.Do I need South Korean and Malaysian transit visas?

Question: I'm a Sri Lankan citizen currently living in Russia. If I travel from Vladivostok to Seoul (S7 airlines) and within 24 hours from Seoul to Colombo (AirAsia with a transit in Kuala Lumpur), do I need South Korean and Malaysian visas?
Answer: A query in TIMATIC, the database used by airport check-in staff, gives the following:
For Malaysia, assuming Seoul-Kuala Lumpur-Colombo is in a single booking, you do not need a transit visa if you have a South Korean visa. If you don't have one, you do need a transit visa.
For South Korea, assuming Vladivostok-Seoul is a separate booking, you do not need a transit visa if you don't have checked-in baggage. If you have checked-in baggage, you do need a transit visa.
UPDATE: Get a South Korean transit visa, and you will be 100% covered.
Comment: Thank you so much. Yes, Vladivostok- Seoul is a one booking  and Seoul-Kuala Lumpur- Colombo is an another one. and I will not check in bags. I'll arrive to Seoul by S7 airlines and fly from Seoul by AirAsia. Will it be a problem not having Korean visa because I use different airlines flights?
Comment: @PiumiJayasinghe The thing is, you need either a Malaysian or South Korean visa, because without a South Korean transit visa, Malaysia requires you to have a transit visa. Because many check-in agents (varies between Airports) will treat Seoul as your final destination if you have separate bookings (and thus deny boarding without a visa), even without checked luggage (partially because of connection "insurance" issues) I would strongly recommend you to go for the Korean visa


Why is saying verification required on my iPhone 5c?

Question: Every time I try to download a free app or update an old app it said verification required. I sign in and it take me straight to the billing/credit card page and I can't get out of it. I have even tried putting in my card number and stuff and it just says that I have entered a wrong number but when I look at my bank account it shows that it took out $5.97. How do I make it stop so I can update my apps?
Comment: Does the phone use 2 different Apple IDs?
Answer: Apple's servers are responsible for deciding if your device and account are in proper standing to make a purchase.
One of two things is happening:

your device is not working properly - most likely due to having two accounts and/or wrong date or other software corruption
your account on the server needs adjusting

With the little information you provided, more triage is needed to know which. You could get a second iOS device and wipe it clean / update it. If you can sign in and make one purchase there - try entering your card and verification details once there. Then making a second "purchase" which could even be a free app download, you will know if the problem is in Apple's side or on your device.
Alternatively, you'll have to start changing one thing on your iOS device and re-testing. If you have a backup, you could erase all content and settings and then set up the device making sure the date/time are correct and then repeat the steps above.
If not, make a backup and then start here:
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/features/
You'll either use the Apple ID support link or perhaps try checking the status of the App Store or another link that grabs your eye - posting a new question here with update and details on your issue.