VMware ESX server

Question: I have ESX server with 8 CPUs. Can I create 4 VMs with 4 VCPUs?
Answer: The best explanation I've heard for 'You should only have one vCPU per VM' is as follows:
When a VM wants a portion of processing time, it waits by the sidelines until it can put a lock on n physical CPU's, where n is the number of vCPUs the VM has. If there is only one vCPU within the VM, it only has to wait until one physical CPU is available before it can jump in and get some stuff done. If it has two or more vCPU's, it has to wait until two or more CPU's are simultaneously available before it jumps in and gets on with things (It will not lock one CPU at a time and wait for more to follow it- it has to wait for multiple to be available before it can pounce)
If you have a bunch of single-vCPU VM's thrashing the physical CPU's, and one multiple-vCPU VM wanting to process, it will possibly have to wait for quite some time as the single-vCPU VM's jump in and keep snatching away spare CPU's before the multiple-vCPU box can get a lock on the number of CPU's that it needs.
VM's lock, use and unlock CPU's rapidly, but the above behaviour can cause poor performance of multi-vCPU boxes in certain situations.
I hope that makes sense (There were a lot of CPU and vCPU and VM mentions, I hope I didn't mix anything up)
This is only heresay - my boss attended VMWare training and relayed the above story to me. It has gone from instructor to my boss to me to you, so take it as you will.
Comment: This is a great explanation but there is one clarification I would make. vCPU's each map onto what VMware calls a hardware execution context and multi-vCPU systems have to be able to schedule all of their hardware execution contexts concurrently. VMware treats each logical core in a multi-core physical CPU as a hardware execution context rather than the physical CPU\socket, just in case that wasn't clear.
Comment: This is a good explanantion but it can be put simply by stating multi-vCPU systems have to be able to schedule all of their hardware execution contexts (cpus) concurrently on the same host.  If you do not have enough contexts free now they have to be swapped in and out causing performance degradation.
Answer: You can, but watch out for performance issues related to CPU scheduling.
VMware has the architectural limitations for guests and hosts well documented in their Configuration Maximums guide, located here for ESX4/vSphere, and here for ESX3.5 (direct links to PDF's).
Comment: grub it's worth you knowing that about 40% of the VCP3 and about 25% of the VCP4 exams are derived directly from those two PDF files if you're thinking of going for it.
Answer: You can create n VM's with 4 vCPU's.
The question is if the performance of the vm's will be good.
Best practice is just to add 1 vCPU per VM and add another vCPU if you really need one.
I just have one or two VM's with 4 vCPU's.
Every VM's shares the physical CPU's of the host system. As more vCPU's you add the more time slices a VM get to work on the physical CPU. Normally you don't reserve a physical CPU only for one VM. It's possible but normally not needed.

VMware ESX server


Docker: is it possible to use overlayed backing filesystem?

Question: I'd like to control whether docker operates on a persistent storage or on a persistent storage overlayed with a volatile one.
It is because I have the filesystem on an SD card (Raspberry Pi) and it needs to last long. I mostly want to operate on a read-only filesystem (ext4) overlayed with tmpfs (run containers on it), but when I detect that an update is available I want to unmount overlayfs, switch filesystem as read-write, update the image, then switch everything back to the tmpfs-overlayed read-only filesystem.
<code># mv /var/lib/docker /var/lib/docker~
# mkdir -p /var/lib/docker /tmp/docker /tmp/work
# mount -t overlay -o lowerdir=/var/lib/docker~,upperdir=/tmp/docker,workdir=/tmp/work overlay /var/lib/docker
# docker daemon --storage-driver devicemapper
</code>
I tried two storage drivers: overlay2 and devicemapper (loop). The former refused to work on overlayfs underlying filesystem (it is also mentioned in the documentation that it is not supported), the latter consumes all my memory and then Docker gets killed by OS. The behaviour is the same for Raspberry Pi and my PC.
The only storage that should work is vfs, but from what I have read, it is very inefficient for storage (no Copy-on-Write), so it is of no use for me.
Now I'm giving a try to do it with aufs storage driver and overlayfs backing filesystem (Docker documentation doesn't state that it is disabled). I hope it will work but it has some disadvantages: aufs is not supported by mainline Linux kernel.
Is there some other way to switch between the two filesystems? Or could the SD card saving be done by some completely different way (e.g. running in-memory containers)?
Comment: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61335090/raspberry-pi-4b-issues-with-docker-not-running-because-of-aufs I think we have similiar issues still after 3 years ugh
Answer: EDIT: Sorry, this finally DOES NOT WORK!!!. Docker daemon starts but is unable to create containers. This is the error:
<code>Handler for POST /v1.24/containers/create returned error: error creating aufs mount to /var/lib/docker/aufs/mnt c549130a63857658f8675fd84296afae46293a9f7ae54e9ee04e83c231db600f-init: invalid argument
</code>
aufs storage driver with overlayfs backing filesystem works. For now it seems like the only option, however I'm not satisfied with the solution, because it looks like a hack to me and because aufs is not in mainline kernel so I needed to compile the kernel myself.
This is how I did it (it's quite a hack, please advice me to do it better):

on my PC:
<code>$ git clone https://github.com/p4l1ly/rpi-kernel
$ cd rpi-kernel
$ vagrant up
</code>
...wait some quite long time...
<code>$ vagrant ssh
    $ cp /var/kernel_build/results/kernel-20161003-100112/rpi2_3/kernel7.img /vagrant/
    $ exit
$ sudo cp kernel7.img /mnt
</code>
then on the SD card:
<code># mv /var/lib/docker /var/lib/docker~
# mkdir -p /var/lib/docker /tmp/docker /tmp/work
# mount -t overlay -o lowerdir=/var/lib/docker~,upperdir=/tmp/docker,workdir=/tmp/work overlay /var/lib/docker
# docker daemon --storage-driver aufs
</code>


How to perfectly pick only one tissue paper from a tissue box?

Question: I was trying to pick only one tissue paper from a tissue box. But each time it comes out with 2 or more pieces. I just fed up separating it one by one after picked it up.
Answer: The reason you are getting two tissues out instead of one is because the plastic lining that regulates the tissues leaving the box was damaged. To repair the slit of plastic you could use plastic food wrap to reshape it's opening to be narrow enough to hold back a secondary tissue from coming out of the box.


Where can I see ocean bioluminescence in coastal California?

Question: I know that Newport Beach has truly spectacular bioluminescence. Are there other places on the coast of California where the phenomenon can be seen, particularly north of Newport Beach?
Comment: It was spectacular in about April or May but nothing to see right now (at least where I am, on the same coast but in northern Mexico).  So you _might_ be out of luck if you're looking for something now, but I think we get it almost every year at the same time.
Answer: San Diego. https://www.pointloma-obmonthly.com/news/story/2020-05-04/the-ocean-blue-bioluminescence-glows-along-sunset-cliffs (mirror):

In addition to Sunset Cliffs, the phenomenon has been particularly dramatic at Ocean Beach, the Scripps Pier area of La Jolla, Cardiff-by-the-Sea and off the San Elijo State Beach campgrounds.

La Jolla, San Diego:

(image source, author:  Jesse Bowen)
Also present in Mission Bay, San Diego: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByL-EkKnDaf/

(image source, author:  Jesse Bowen)
A video, still in San Diego: https://youtu.be/qlTCB_p3slY
More information on https://www.10news.com/lifestyle/exploring-san-diego/tips-on-enjoying-san-diegos-bioluminescence-waves-safely (mirror):

With the red tide along San Diego's shore, locals have been flocking to the coast nightly to catch a glimpse of bioluminescent waves.
The waves are created when phytoplankton, called "dinoflagellates," crash in the tide, reacting and causing bioluminescence when jostled
Comment: Note that "red tides" are seasonal (springtime) and are not very predictable as far as timing, duration, or intensity.  If you plan a trip far in advance in hopes of seeing this phenomenon, you'll likely be disappointed.
Comment: @NateEldredge you'll see red
Comment: That is beautiful!
Answer: I've been on a night time bioluminescence kayak tour in Tomales Bay, a bit more than an hour north of San Francisco.  A couple tour companies run organized tours, or you can just bring your own kayak to the launch at Nick's Cove and paddle around Hog Island and back.  While I thought the experience was very cool, when I went it wasn't nearly as spectacular as the videos and pictures usually show - it was more like some light sparkles for a short moment as your paddle or hand pushes through the water, not long trails of light.  It definitely wasn't something that would be easily noticeable from outside the water.
Comment: I know, I've been there too, that's why I specified "ocean" and "coastal". Probably the northernmost point in California where this happens though!
Answer: San Clemente had strong bioluminescence due to "red waves" in May 2020, but it's gone now and currents are tough to track.


Freezing raw pizza

Question: I'm preparing two pizza, one for immediate consumption and the other one I want to freeze so it can be eaten next week.
Is it OK if I freeze raw pizza I.e. raw dough with all the ingredients? Or should I bake the base for a bit? Or even should I bake two pizzas and freezer one, fully baked or half baked? Pizza would be prepared from instant yeast - dry powder.
Comment: What kind of pizza are we talking about? My answer would depend on that.
Comment: @Stephie I'm preparing pizza from instant yeast 7 grams per 500g of of wheat flour and 300ml of warm water 1 teaspoon of salt 1 teaspoon of sugar to prepare two pizzas
Answer: After some teething trouble I freeze my raw (sour-)dough in a flattened ball.  I no longer dust it in flour before freezing, and use a rubber spatula to help get it out of the plastic box in which I freeze it. I'd like some smaller boxes so less air goes in, but I'll work with what I've got, and those boxes stack nicely with the other meals in my freezer.
After some experimenting, defrosting in a cold part of the fridge for about 20 hours works best.  And not resting the dough for too long before freezing seems to make it less sticky and easier to work.
You need to be quite generous with the flour when rolling the previously-frozen dough.  This is all for a moderately thin sourdough pizza, though I have used a similar approach with my bread machine recipe using yeast; that makes quite a fluffy base.
My freezer tends to be too full to freeze pizza bases parbaked, but fitting in a box of dough is much easier.
Answer: I think this is just going to be a matter of preference and maybe a little experimentation.
You can't go wrong with partially baking first. Let it bake until just a bit past the point where it's risen and starting to brown - then let it cool - then freeze. It's what I do with bread all the time. To re-bake I would let it thaw first, then continue baking at your original temperature or maybe just a bit lower so the crust doesn't brown too much before the inside is done.
But you'll also notice that many if not most frozen pizzas are raw and go straight to the oven this way. There's no inherent reason you couldn't do this either. However I think it would be more difficult to pack and store. I would suggest using cardboard, or an appropriately sized pizza box, in either case lined with parchment, and then assembling the pizza directly on that surface. Wrap it well and obviously make sure it's flat in the freezer. It's just going to be more delicate work than par-baking because nothing will be set yet. To bake I'd follow similar directions to frozen pizza - place it directly on an oven rack without thawing first. You might have to experiment to find the best temperature and time though.
Personally I'd be surprised if you like the results from freezing it raw better than par-baking, and freezing it raw feels like a bigger pain, but if you see an advantage to it try it!
BTW I'm assuming a thin crust here. For a deep dish, sicilian, etc., you should absolutely par-bake first unless you have some kind of oven-safe disposable pan you can freeze it AND cook it in.

Freezing raw pizza


Connecting custom domain to Outlook.com

Question: I use Outlook.com as my personal email account and have done since ~2006, but I now need a business email for the sake of professionalism: firstname.lastname@example.com. Is it possible for me to just register business.com and point its DNS records to Outlook so that I can then receive emails to (and send emails from) email@example.com via my Outlook inbox? Or is this only available as a paid service nowadays? I also use Windows 10's Mail app if it's possible to do it via that. Would appreciate some help with this, thank you.
Answer: I would first like to make clear that Outlook.com and Microsoft Outlook have very different functions and services. Although both can be used as the email clients for your domain email.
There are 2 ways you can do the implementation.

Straight a way, buy the email service from outlook.com or GSuite and use the email features by defining MX records in your Domain's dns manager.
But this can be very costly over the time and over the number of users. Also, it gives you bundle of other services that you probably won't use. But still pay for them.
If you want to go with this, go to link below and follow the steps.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-ie/office/change-your-email-domain-in-outlook-com-premium-cc47f494-8679-4365-97c1-e709aebf727e?ui=en-us&rs=en-ie&ad=ie
You can have 3rd party shared hosting with hosting side email accounts. And then connect it through POP3 or IMAP and SMTP to outlook.com's interface or Microsoft Outlook Interface. This is the cheaper way to implement. But in this way little delivery delays might there while receiving there according to the frequency of email check requests.

If you want to go with this way, then first buy the hosting package with email and then follow the steps in the link below:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-your-other-email-accounts-to-outlook-com-c5224df4-5885-4e79-91ba-523aa743f0ba
Let me know if you want more information on this.

Connecting custom domain to Outlook.com


Formatted XML display in Safari 8

Question: I'm trying to find an extension or plugin that allows Safari to display XML in a more user friendly form, similar to how its handled by Firefox.
The only relevant information seems to be heavily outdated and not applicable to the latest version (8.0.7).
How can I view the raw XML of an RSS feed in Safari (or Reeder)? had an answer about 'XV XML Viewer', but the answer itself has been updated pointing out that it no longer works in Safari 5.1.
There is also an older .webplugin that could have been used, but then I read that the .webplugin mechanism itself is deprecated and no longer used in modern versions.
Is there any updated extension that can show a formatted xml view in current Safari versions? The ability to collapse/expand nodes would be nice, but atleast basic formatting would still be better than just a giant blob of text whenever I view a web service from Safari instead of Firefox.
Answer: You do not need an extension or plugin. What you should do is supply an appropriate XSL. The browser will use this to format the XML for display. See http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp for more information.

Formatted XML display in Safari 8


Anime Series aired on Cartoon Network probably between 1990-2005

Question: There was an Anime series consisting of 3 guys. Each of them had a robot. They used to sit inside the robot and fight battles for a princess. There was a 4th robot which would come to assist them. The 4th robot had the capability to connect with any of the 3 robots and transform it into a more powerful robot.
I am not able to recollect the name of this anime.
~I would be glad if somebody would help in refreshing my memory.
Comment: might be voltron
Comment: I can picture exactly what you mean in my head and I can't remember the name. This is going to drive me mad hahaha
Answer: That has all the hallmarks of Ninja Robots.  You have three human pilots of robots, an alien princess they are protecting, and one unique robot "Cybertron" who shows up as needed and has the ability to combine with one of the other three robots.
Comment: I don't remember this show *at all*, but it does seem to fit the given definition pretty well.
Comment: Thanks Jimmy.. you finally put my brain to rest..:)
Answer: You may be thinking of Zoids: Chaotic Century.

It has three primary fighting characters (Irvine on the left, Van in the center, and Moonbay on the far right) who fight in their giant semi-living robots (called Zoids) to protect Fiona (second from the right), who is one of the last members of an ancient race.  They have Zeke, an organoid (a special, small Zoid: second from the left) who can fuse with a Zoid to repair it or, in Van and one other character's case (Raven, in the right side background) can actually make it evolve into a new and improved form.
Comment: zoids was good, i have then downloaded in my secret anime cache
Comment: @Himarm Chaotic Century is definitely better in terms of storyline than New Century (the one with Bit and the Liger Zero).


Searching for someone who may have deactivated their account

Question: When you search a name on Facebook, and that person's name appears on their friends' posts (and you click on the name of the person you are searching for on those posts), it takes you to their (former) page with no information on it other than their profile picture. Does that mean that they only allow friends to search them and see their postings or does that mean that the account is deactivated?
Comment: Just a note, questions about Facebook here should be concerned with the desktop web interface. Questions about a native smartphone app really belong on [android.se], [apple.se], or [windowsphone.se], as appropriate.
Answer: If the name is clickable, it means the profile is active. And when you click on someone's name it will show only those parts of the profile which are public. The profile pic would be visible but if the audience is not set "public" you will not be able to click on that.
You can search for anyone on Facebook but you will only be able to see their public posts if you are not friends with them.
Comment: The person's name is NOT clickable on Facebook on a regular computer, however, it is clickable on the app on the phone. Does that still mean the profile is active?
Comment: It should not clickable on the app also. If it is not clickable on computer means profile has deactivated.
Comment: @marikamitsos: Thanks for your edits. Here I mean same what it is written. Some of your edits I rejected because those edits change the meaning what I wanted to say. :)
Comment: @serenesat Thank you for your clarification. The edits I made though, concern pure grammatical as well as expressional mistakes. As in this instance: _Here I mean **exactly** what is written. Some of your edits I rejected because those edits change the meaning **of** what I wanted to say._ :)


The best way to represent simultaneity in storytelling

Question: What is the best way to represent many events at the same time in UI in order to perform a storytelling? Do you have some source of inspiration?
Some examples of application of this case:
1) I want to represent different events on a map and the progression (with their start, development and end) of these events.
2) I want to tell different stories, communicating that they are happening in the same time.
Answer: As you've asked for a source of inspiration, I would like to share the brilliance of Minard's map with you. Tufte regarded it as the  best statistical graphic ever drawn.
It has elements of storytelling, data, distance, latitude, temperature, direction of travel and location - all in one map! Essentially, it integrates four types of information design - Space, Time, Numbers and Events.

This might not be a direct solution for your problem, but it gives a good direction on how to combine several elements together in one map.
As quoted in one of the books on information design:

Minard's graphic has become something of a self-perpetuating industry
  and continues to fascinate designers, information architects,
  information scientists, statisticians, teachers, and students; it is
  truly the 800-pound gorilla in the information design room.
Answer: There are several alternatives, many of which can be used at the same time.
1: If space allows have them at the same horizontal space on the story board.
There is a timeline going left to right somewhere and you have one story flowing on 'line 1', one flowing on 'line 2', etc...
2: Where you have only two different plot lines then have the timeline in the middle and one plotline above, one below. This really lets the reader easily see the plotlines in isolation or as part of a whole.
3: Use colour to link the same 'plot lines' together. It is best combined with 1 but if space is limited and some plotlines can vanish for a few months only to reappeat this still helps to keep them connected.
4: Physically connect them. If you have one event on Monday and Tuesday but then it goes quiet until Saturday then have a very thin line of the same colour running between Tuesday and Friday to link them together.
5: Use common images to tie the stories together. e.g. if one plot line is about your main character dealing with Bob then have a picture of Bob in the events dealing with him. If another is dealing with your character doing something on her iPhone then have an iPhone picture in those events.


Minimax algorithm

Question: I have a simple question regarding the Minimax algorithm: for example for the tic-tac-toe game, how do I determine the utility function's for each player plays? It doesn't do that automatically, does it? I must hard-code the values in the game, it can't learn them by itself, does it?
Answer: No, a MiniMax does not learn. It is a smarter version of a brute-force tree search.
Comment: Since it is a brute-force algorithm it is important to optimize it using something like Alpha-Beta Pruning as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-beta_pruning
Comment: berrick: yes, of course. But alpha/beta is usually implied, certainly when talking about negamax.
Answer: Typically you would implement the utility function directly.  In this case the algorithm would not learn how to play the game, it would use the information that you had explicitly hard-coded in the implementation.
However, it would be possible to use genetic programming (GP) or some equivalent technique to automatically derive a utility function.  In this case you would not have to encode any explicit strategy.  Instead the evolution would discover its own way of playing the game well.
You could either combine your minimax code and the GP code into a single (probably very slow) adaptive program, or you could run the GP first, find a good utility function and then add this function to your minimax code just as you would any hand-coded function.
Answer: Tic-Tac-Toe is small enough to run the game to the end and assign 1 for win, 0 for draw and -1 for lose.
Otherwise you have to provide a function which determines the value of a position heuristically. In chess for example a big factor is the value of the material, but also who controls the center or how easily the pieces can move.
As for learning, you can add weight factors to different aspects of the position and try to optimize those by repeatedly playing games.
Answer: How do determine the utility function for each play?
Carefully ;-)  This article shows how a slightly flawed evaluation function (one for ex. which either doesn't go "deep" enough in looking ahead in the tree of possible plys, or one which fails to capture the relative strengh of some board positions) results in an overall weak algorithm (one that looses more often).
it can't learn them by itself, does it?
No, it doesn't.  There are ways, however, to make the computer learn the relative strength of board positions.  For example by looking into Donald Mitchie and his MENACE program you'll see how a stochastic process can be used to learn the board without any a priori knowledge but the rules of the game.  The funny part is that while this can be implemented in computers, a few hundred colored beads and match boxes are all that is required, thanks to the relatively small size of the game space, and also thanks to various symmetries.
After learning such a cool way of teaching the computer how to play, we may not be so interested in going back to MinMax as applied to Tic-Tac-Toe.  After all MinMax is a relatively simple way of pruning a decision tree, which is hardly needed with tic-tac-toe's small game space.  But, if we must ;-) [go back to MinMax]...
We can look into the "matchbox" associated with the next play (i.e. not going deep at all), and use the percentage of beads associated with each square, as an additional factor.  We can then evaluate a traditional tree, but only going, say 2 or 3 moves deep (a shallow look-ahead depth which would typically end in usually in losses or draws) and rate each next move on the basis of the simple -1 (loss), 0 (draw/unknown), +1 (win) rating.  By then combining the beads percentage and the simple rating (by say addition, certainly not by multiplication), we are able to effectively use MinMax in a fashion that is more akin to the way it is used in cases when it is not possible to evaluate the game tree to its end.
Bottom line: In the case of Tic-Tac-Toe, MinMax only becomes more interesting (for example in helping us explore the effectiveness of a particular utility function) when we remove the deterministic nature of the game, associated with the easy evaluation the full tree.   Another way of making the game [mathematically] interesting is to play with a opponent which makes mistakes...

Minimax algorithm


Does the inverse-CTFT exist for a dirac delta?

Question: Does the inverse continuous time Fourier transform exist for a Dirac delta (A single causal/non-causal spike)?
Comment: See the answers to a related  [recent question](http://math.stackexchange.com/q/111266/15941) on math.SE which will also tell you how to use tables of common Fourier transform pairs with respect to the radian frequency variable $\omega$ radians/second to obtain Fourier transform pairs with respect to frequency variable $f$ in Hertz. For the particular case of impulses in time or frequency, the key is the _sifting_  property: $$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} x(y) \delta(y-a)\mathrm dy = x(a) ~ \text{if}~x(y)~\text{is continuous at}~a.$$
Answer: Yes, this is a complex exponential $e^{2 \pi i f_0 t}$, at a frequency determined by the delta's "position" $f_0$ (your input being $\delta(f - f_0)$). Write the integral for the inverse Fourier transform, use the definition of $\delta$ and you'll see it "selects" at this particular frequency the complex exponential being integrated.
Comment: This is a very important transform that is often found in a table of common Fourier transforms [like this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform#Tables_of_important_Fourier_transforms).
Answer: As a side note: forward and inverse Fourier Transform are mostly the same thing. For example a rectangle in one domain corresponds to a sin(x)/x in the other domain (regardless whether it starts in time or frequency). The same goes for a delta: impulse in one domain corresponds to a complex exponential in the other.
You can implement an inverse FFT (based on a forward FFT) as follows:

take the conjugate
forward FFT
take the conjugate again
divide by length of the sequence

In Matlab that would look like this
<code>n = 1024;
x0 = randn(n,1) + j*rand(n,1); % random sequence
fx = fft(x0);  % take the FFT
x1 = conj(fft(conj(fx)))/n; % inverse fft based on fw fft
% print an error metric how close we got to the orginal signal
fprintf('Error = %6.2f dB\n', 10*log10(sum( (x1-x0).* conj(x1-x0))./sum(x0.*conj(x0))));
</code>
Comment: That's true. Matlab's scaling is probably the most common (and seen in most textbooks). 1/sqrt(N) for both forward and inverse would be better is it ensure the cleanest version of Parseval's theorem, i.e energy in the time domain equals energy in the frequency domain.
Comment: I wouldn't include step #4 in your list above, as it won't necessarily be the case. There is no single agreed-upon notion of how scaling is handled in the DFT/IDFT. What you indicated does work with MATLAB's implementation, but it's possible that another would not require the division by $N$.


Javascript pop-up window

Question: I copied this code from "www.hotscripts.com", http://www.advancebydesign.com/itemdetails.php?item=15.
What it does it just displays a simple window in the middle of the screen.
3 very simple steps are required:
1) create a button <input type="button" onclick='Javascript:my_box.Show();' value="Show Popup Box">
2)include this into head
3) and also this added to the head:
my_box = new jscPopupBox();
my_box.width = 400;
my_box.height = 450;

content_html = "
<input type=\"button\" ";
content_html+= "style=\"float:right;height:26px;width:26px;\" value=\"X\" ";
content_html+= "onclick='my_box.Hide();'>
\n";

content_html+= "";

my_box.html = content_html;

What I dont get is why the windows on my website appear on the upper left corner, instead in the middle. I haven't touched the source code, and when  I try it on a plain HTML page it seems to work. Is my CSS interfering?
Comment: Possibly. Are you able to link to an example of it not working?
Answer: You may want to look at using the jQuery UI Dialog instead.

Javascript pop-up window


What are the pros and cons of the Two-Weapon Fighting option for fighters?

Question: I've been seeing discussions about how great weapon fighting and even dueling, when reaching a certain point, are stronger than Two-Weapon Fighting. What are the advantages & disadvantages of the Two-Weapon Fighting option as compared to the other options?
Comment: [Related] [Which Fighter (TWF Fighter vs. Great Weapon Fighter) is better optimized for Dealing Damage?](//rpg.stackexchange.com/q/44241)
Answer: Vs. Defense
The defense fighting style gives +1 AC while wearing armor. The only advantage this has is that you can get it earlier than your first feat, but only by a few levels. At level 4, you can take the dual wielder feat, and then two weapon fighting will have evened out the AC difference. Your main disadvantage at this point with TFW is not having a shield, but you will do more damage from here on out as a trade off.
Vs. Protection
You will have +2 AC because of the shield you need to use the protection effect. However it requires you to stand very close to an ally and doesn't actually do any damage. Plus, it's entirely situationally dependent. While disadvantage on an opponent's attack sounds good, you can actually save your allies from taking damage by ending the fights earlier, which is done with the extra damage from two weapon fighting. Protection only makes fights last longer, so your friends have more time to be hit with more damaging abilities. In most respects, this means two weapon fighting is the better choice here.
Vs. Great Weapon Fighting
As described in this answer, Two weapon fighting has the advantage in damage at the early levels. I won't copy over all of the math, but the crux of things is that re-rolling 1s and 2s tends to add about 1 damage on average to your attacks. Compare this to adding your whole ability modifier to damage, and at the early levels, you can expect the two weapon fighter to deal about 1 extra damage per round. However, as the fighter gains extra attacks, the benefits from GWF (and the almost mandatory feat Great Weapon Master) apply to each attack that the fighter can make. The Great Weapon Fighter will end up dealing About 10 more damage per round because of the benefits being applied to each of the 4+ attacks the fighter can make. So, as a GWF fighter gets extra attacks, TWF starts falling farther behind in damage. Though, it's worth noting that you will have +1 AC with the dual wielder feat.
Vs. Dueling
TWF has the advantage when it comes to damage. Though you will ultimately have -2 AC compared to a dueling fighter because of their shield (-1 with dual wielder). The damage bonus from dueling applies to each extra attack that the fighter will get, just as with GWF. So, duelers end up with a sizable damage boost when they have extra attacks, which minimizes the difference in damage between the fighting styles. Additionally, a dueler gains a lot of versatility with the shield master feat. Knocking an enemy prone with a bonus action can give you advantage on attacks, and you have extra survivability on dexterity saves, which are one of the most common saves in the game. Using the formula and assumptions from the link on GWF damage, we can average the damage of a longsword dueling champion fighter at 20th level as 4×(11.5×0.8+.15×4.5) = 39.5. A TWF dual wielder with rapiers will deal 5×(9.5×0.8+1.5×4.5) = 41.375. So at the cost of about 2 damage per round, A dueler will get +1 AC, and the shield master feat.
Vs. Archery
The two are used for completely different play styles. Obviously, if you plan to use ranged equipment primarily, then archery is better. If you plan to mostly be up close, TWF is better. Each fighting style would pretty much be useless outside of niche cases when used with the opposite playing style.
Conclusion
When it comes to the other fighting styles TWF deals the most damage in melee range at the early levels. As a fighter starts getting extra attacks though, in pure damage TWF is outclassed by GWF because of the boosts to each attack. Dueling outclasses TWF for all around generic usefulness because of the fairly even boosts to offense and defense, as well as the utility provided by shield master. So, while you have a damage boost with TWF in the early levels which may come in handy for a one-shot or short-lived campaign, dueling or GWF tend to be better choices if you expect your character to have a very long career. Excluding any character flavor, of course.
Comment: For completeness, it might also be worth assessing the UA fighting styles: Mariner, Close Quarters Shooter, and Tunnel Fighter. CQS would probably be comparable to Archery, since again the two are used with different weapon types - though CQS makes using ranged weapons up close viable. Mariner gives +1 to AC and makes swimming/climbing not use up 2x movement (without heavy armor or a shield). Tunnel Fighter allows opportunity attacks without using a reaction, and lets the reaction be used to attack creatures that move from one space within reach to another one within reach.
Comment: You compare TWF+Dual Wielder to other fighting styles. Add a matching feat to those too, and TWF is left far behind.
Answer: Break down, the benefit of Dueling is having no weapon in the other hand. For a Paladin or melee spell caster who needs his hand free to cast, that means you gain +2 damage. Also you can use a shield to gain +2 AC. So basically it's a +2 damage, +2 AC bonus.
Great Weapon Fighting is great when used with a maul or greatsword due to the fact they're both 2d6+modifier damage, meaning — at minimum — you're doing 2+modifier damage. But you can re-roll that minimum roll, so chances are you will do more damage with Great Weapon Fighting. But there is the drawback of the −2 AC compared to Dueling with a shield.
Also you're allowed to reroll ones or twos on crits with Great Weapon Fighting, so that leads to a bigger increase.
Answer: The TWF style is also very good if you want to dual-wield hand crossbows.  You will need the feat called Crossbow Expert to pull this off, but a human fighter will be able to do it at first level.  Get the sharpshooter feat at level 4, and you're good to go.  Maybe put 2 levels in Ranger or Blood hunter (if your GM allows that class) to get the Archery combat style for a cheesy way to off-set the -5 attack penalty from sharpshooter.  At level 5 you will be popping off three crossbow shots per round from 120 feet away and getting at least +13 damage.  Pretty sweet if you ask me.
If you prefer melee combat, though, a two-handed weapon and the Great Weapon Master feat will be much better.  The GWF style would be your best option for a 2-handed warrior, but the Protection style is a good choice, too, especially since you won't be using a shield
Comment: How do you plan to pull dual wielding hand crossbow? As far as I know, you need one free hand to reload the bolt after firing.


What are the main differences between gi and nogi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

Question: What are the main differences between gi and nogi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
Comment: Related: https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/9093/what-is-the-difference-between-judo-and-wrestling
Answer: In Brazilian jiu-jitsu with a gi you wear the funny Asian pajamas. In no-gi Brazilian jiu-jitsu you wear shorts and usually a t-shirt or rash-guard top. You can grab onto the funny pajamas but you can't grab onto any clothes in no-gi.
The gi absorbs sweat, adds friction, and provides a wide variety of grips to choke, throw, and control from. Often the rules in no-gi are more permissive, particularly with regards to leg locks. Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the gi has more carry-over from judo. Without the gi there is more carry-over from modern and Catch wrestling. Wearing the gi is more traditional. Playing without the gi has more applicability to mixed martial arts.
Both are applicable to self-defense. Both are valid jiu-jitsu.
Comment: Also in most competitions you are allowed to grab onto your own clothes in no-gi. Just for completeness sake, as this can be helpful in certain spots.
Comment: also in competition, its not done by belt rank
Comment: There is most certainly rank in no-gi. Rash guards are colored based on your belt. It's also possible to get a, say, black belt in no-gi... and then later obtain a black belt in the gi. See `Joe Rogan`
Comment: @JoeBeck Ranked rash guards are still relatively rare in my experience – some tournaments require them, a small number of schools require them, but most instructors don't give no-gi rank. I think Keith is talking about how a lot of tournaments use the belt system for gi divisions but a beginner/intermediate/advanced system for no-gi divisions, so that wrestlers and so on get appropriately competition.
Answer: "Gi" refers to the uniform that is worn during most martial arts practice. Nogi means that you do not wear one, and instead wear shorts or spats and a rash guard or you are shirtless.
There are a few differences when talking about gi vs. nogi when executing techniques.
For gi:

Gis provide friction that may make it easier OR harder to escape or change positions.
Gis give you the opportunity to grab onto you opponent or yourself with stronger grips.
Wearing a gi lets you show off you belt(seriously though, your belt/opponent's belt can be used as a handle)

For nogi:

Give's you the opportunity to practice grips for self defense situations(most likely your attacker will not be wearing a gi. If you see someone get mugged by someone who is wearing a gi, tell me!)
Rash guards/bare skin provide less friction than gis do and can actually be slippery, which may help with some escapes.

When referring to competition, there are a few variations between gi and nogi.

Some submissions or sweeps/throws may not be legal for gi but will be nogi (i.e. scissor takedown, heel hook).
It is against the rules to grab onto clothing in nogi, whereas nogi grips are still legal in gi competition.
Gi competitors are divided based on belt, nogi competitors are divided based on what belt they would be wearing,, or how long they have been doing BJJ.

All in all, nogi tends to be harder in general, because your opponent is slippery and hard to grab. However, nogi concepts translate better into self defense, since it gives a more realistic representation of what people outside the gym might wear. Also, nogi techniques can always be done with a gi on, whereas vice-versa is not true. If you are starting out BJJ, try to pick one or the other and then transition to both later on. I do believe that it will only be beneficial to your BJJ skills to train in gi and nogi.


How to populate field Y based on values on X field

Question: On a shapefile, how to populate fields with values based on another field. Like an if condition script. "If field X has value 1 then populate field Y with either this or that values. For example, populate values of either "Good" or "NotGood" in newly formed field based on values from field X. If field X has values 1, then populate newfield with "Good" or if the field x has value like 4 ( or any value other than 1), then populate newfield with "NotGood".
Comment: Are you using Esri software?  Assuming so, is it ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro, and are you using the "Field Calculator" tool or are you trying to write a standalone python script?  You can add tags (arcpy, arcgis-desktop, arcgis-pro, etc) to make your question more clear without adding verbosity to the question itself. Also this looks like perhaps a duplicate of the other question you asked last week.  Rather than create a new question, perhaps you can go back and edit that one.
Comment: Just python scripts. If condition. The example i gave is pretty much what I wanted help with.The result has to be populated in the respective field.
Answer: Assuming you've got access to Esri's arcpy site package, you can use the CalculateField tool.  Syntax for that would be something like this . . .
import arcpy

myShapefile = r"C:\temp\myShapefile.shp"
fieldToCalc = "FieldThatsEitherGoodOrNotGood"
conditionField = "FieldThatContainsIntegers"
codeBlock="""def CalculateValue(otherFieldValue):
  if otherFieldValue == 1:
    return 'Good'
  else:
    return 'NotGood' """

arcpy.CalculateField_management(
    myShapefile,
    fieldToCalc,
    "CalculateValue( !{}! )".format(conditionField),
    "PYTHON",
    codeBlock
)

For more flexibility you may look into using an UpdateCursor thusly:
import arcpy

myShapefile = r"C:\temp\myShapefile.shp"
fieldToCalc = "FieldThatsEitherGoodOrNotGood"
conditionField = "FieldThatContainsIntegers"

with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(myShapefile, [fieldToCalc, conditionField]) as uc:
    for row in uc:
        if row[1] == 1:
            row[0] = "Good"
        else:
            row[0] = "NotGood"
        uc.updateRow(row)

Answer: def ifthen(a,b):
    if a == 1:
        b = "Good"
    else:
        b = "NotGood"
    return b

Here is a simple if then statement.  I'd need more info about your problem in order to explain how to implement the if then function.


Elasticsearch and PostgreSQL combination

Question: I have a marketplace application and I stored data in a PostgreSQL. I have performance problem for product search, I know I can improve search performance if I use Elasticsearch instead of PostgreSQL but I'm confused for is Elasticsearch strong as PostgreSQL (RDBMS) in create, update or delete operations.
which makes sense; Using Elasticsearch for searches only, in other cases, using PostgreSQL, such as fetching by id. or using Elasticsearch for all operations
Comment: Elasticsearch instead of PostgreSQL: Nope. Elasticsearch with PostgresSQL: Possible - but depends on what you are looking for. Performance problem for search - depends on the complexity of your application and search queries. If the queries are too simple but find poor performance, you might have overlooked DB abilities, your db itself has features which when used could solve perf issues.
Comment: I have no idea.  What are your goals?  Have you read at least some of the documentation for Elasticsearch to discover its appropriate uses and setup procedures?
Comment: To the downvoters / close voters: come on, though the question is not well written, it is quite clear what the OP is after - how a search engine can interact with or replace a relational DB for a specific use case. That is a pretty focussed and answerable software engineering question.
Comment: Elasticsearch isn't a database.  It is a search and analytics engine.  So no, it's not going to have the same qualities as Postgres.
Comment: then I should use elasticsearch with rdbms right?
Comment: I want to improve search performance, for example, if someone searched for a T-shirt and there are 1000 products in the database, the response time is too long.
Yes, I read some papers, but I'm still confused.
Comment: You already mention that elasticsearch does not have all qualities of an RDBMS. But still you consider using only elastic. This makes me think that either 1) you don't fully understand the sacurities/safety/integrity postgres offers or 2) you don't need these.
Comment: @DocBrown true. I upvoted to balance out.
Answer: Think of Elasticsearch as an eventually inconsistent index on top of your DBMS. The index is built once for a specific state of the database, but when the content of the DB changes, one will have to update this index afterwards (for example, in regular intervals, or somehow coupled to these changes). Depending on how one implements the update strategy, there can be some temporary inconsistencies between what Elasticsearch finds and what is really in the DB.
This is just the same situation you see everyday at search engines like Google: when the content of a website changes, and you look for a newly added keyword on a certain page, there is always a time lag until Google finds the changed page. And when a keyword or a whole page was deleted, there is also a time lag until Google does not present the page any more among its search results.
So an application has to take care for searches which may sometimes find something which is not really in the DB anymore, or does not find something immediately which was added shortly. Nevertheless it can make sense to let the search engine handle complex full text queries and deliver a resultset of product IDs, which are then queried in a relational DB by a simple SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE ID IN (...) statement.
You will have to analyse for yourself if the additional overhead is worth it, and if Elasticsearch really solves your issues. Alternatively (and definitely simpler to start with), you could look at the full text index capabilities of PostgreSQL and check if they can help you to optimize the queries of your specific application. See also this tutorial, starting with the words

.... but you're not sure you're ready to implement a full-blown search application like [...] Elasticsearch

which seems precisely to be your situation here.
Comment: Thank you for your answer and kindly answer. I read tutorials you sent and i dont know its good/true way but i decided to use Elasticsearch for only search in my application and i will use logstash for sync PostgreSQL and Elasticsearch


Where can I find closed dates for the New York Stock Exchange for the coming year?

Question: Does the NYSE have the same holiday/closed dates as the CME? Where can I find the holiday schedule for the coming year?
Comment: A more general solution... [NYSE Holidays 2016](https://www.google.com/search?q=NYSE+holidays+2016)
Answer: The NYSE holidays are listed online here:
https://www.nyse.com/markets/hours-calendars
Answer: You can find the NYSE holiday dates listed on the exchange's own site (already linked in answer above), which should obviously be consulted as the most reliable source; they are also published in an article that I have written here: NYSE Holidays 2016, which provides additional information about traditions and events that can be expected to lead to unscheduled closures, and closed dates for holidays that are day-of-month rather than date specific (e.g. President's Day and Memorial Day).
NYSE Holidays are not quite identical to those for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, though most US stock exchange dates are the same. Also, note that both the Merc (via the Globex platform) and NYSE Arca have different normal cash sessions and trading hours to the New York Stock Exchange.


Was "Sleep No More" the first Doctor Who episode without the theme music and credits?

Question: The Doctor Who episode "Sleep No More," season nine, episode nine, only had a brief highlight of the words "Doctor Who" on the screen, not the usual theme music and crazy opening title-sequence. Is this the first time that's been done on either the new (2005) series or the old (1963) series? I can't remember an instance right now, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any... Can any one name an earlier episode that forgoes the credits/theme? (At least one and the question's answered. Not after a list...)
Comment: No problem... one day somebody will ask a classic who question and it will be my time to shine :)
Comment: Are you just looking for opening credits? The final episode of Earthshock (5th Doctor) rolled the end credits in silence over a static backdrop. The reason why involves spoilers so I won't mention in a comment.
Comment: @ThePopMachine There was no theme music for this episode in keeping with the "found footage" aspect. Wouldn't make sense to have credits after someone tells you you're going to see helmet-camera and CCV. Smart idea, I think. If you're asking about the Earthshock episode raze brought up, that was an episode-centric homage.
Comment: I understand the reason for that silence, but I am only asking about opening credits here as I'm asking about the newest episode.
Comment: You can ask a question and answer it. That's totally legit. This is a database of answered questions being built. No shame in it, mate.
Comment: Why no theme music?   Is this a dumb question?   I'm just not familiar.
Comment: I maintain that leaving out the theme song means that the episode is not canon, but I don't really expect anyone to agree with me. :)
Answer: Yes, Sleep No More was the first.
See e.g. this article entitled "Doctor Who Opening Titles Dropped For First Time Ever".
While "Sleep No More" is the first proper season episode to do this, it's not the first televised Doctor Who story to skimp on the titles, nor the most severe: while "Sleep No More" at least flashes the episode title in the end credits, the 2005 Children In Need special doesn't tell us its title at all. (And the experimental Big Finish audio story "LIVE 34" doesn't have that series' normal title or credit elements either.)
Comment: Man, that's an ugly game-show-looking, low-res image... When I clicked thru to your linked article I actually thought to myself, "at least *that's* not on the SE page." *And now it is.* Still, I'm just glad to have my question answered. I vote yes for you and the answer and vote no for the image. **: P**
Comment: @MeatTrademark I can remove it again if you *really* want :-)
Comment: Now I *miss* it. It was like a low-rent Doctor Who-based Family Fued screencap. Dang. Just ain't no pleasin' me... **;)**


EEA Family permit renewal

Question: My husband is from an EEA qualifying country and I am not an EEA national. I have travelled to the UK before through the EEA family permit. We live in the USA and are planning to travel to the UK for a vacation, but my EEA family permit has expired.
Can I apply for a new EEA family permit?
Answer: Yes, you can.
You may know, however, that the UK is preparing to leave the EU.  Depending on whether there is a deal governing its departure, the exact moment when the free movement directive will cease to apply could be anywhere from 11 PM (London time) on March 29 October 31st to the 30th of June, 2021.  If you need a visa to enter the UK, you will probably need a standard visitor visa at that point.
Answer: Yes, You can. It is possible until 30 June 2021.  You can also ask for standard visitor visa as the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.

EEA Family permit renewal


Pl/SQL Package Inline Documentation

Question: I am attempting to more fully document our database packages as an API. What we would like is something like JavaDocs for PL/SQL. I have seen a couple tools out there (pldoc, plsqldoc) but would like to know from people who use them how they compare.
Answer: I have used PlDoc and find it really good. I haven't used any other tools so can't compare. I found PlDoc did the basics well. I wanted some more advanced features so I built our own tool that added extensions to PlDoc for more tags. Also I don't just do documentation with it I also generate our package headers using some PlDoc tags (e.g @private).
I recommend you try PlDoc then tweak whatever doesn't meet your needs. It doesn't take that long to set up so its not a huge time investment to try it.
Answer: I've been using NaturalDocs  for a few years now and have found it easy to install and use.
It's pretty much like JavaDocs and supports multiple languages although I've only used it with PL/SQL.
Very configurable although I've not found it necessary to fiddle with that.
Comment: I probably wouldn't have found this particular tool without your answer. While pretty approachable, I think that a more rigidly structured solution is what our team needs. Thanks!

Pl/SQL Package Inline Documentation


Securing a fresh Ubuntu server

Question: Say I've got a fresh install of Ubuntu, what steps should I take to secure it for use as a Rails application server?
Comment: there is a similar question here, it may help; http://serverfault.com/questions/11659
Answer: I can't think of any Ubuntu-specific tweaks, but here's a few that apply to all distributions:

Uninstall all unnecessary packages
Use public-key only authentication in SSH
Disable root logins via SSH (doesn't apply to Ubuntu)
Use the production settings for PHP (php.ini-recommended)
Configure MySQL to use sockets only

Of course this list isn't complete, and you'll never be completely safe, but it covers all the exploits I have seen in real life.
Also, the exploits I have seen were almost always related to unsecure user code, not unsecure configuration. The default configurations in minimal, server distributions tend to be pretty secure.
Comment: "Uninstall all unnecessary packages". OK. Thats pretty vague. What 'unnecessary' packages?
Comment: @Luke: Anything you're not using is unnecessary. More specific, running services that you don't need put machines in unnecessary risk.
Comment: Change the port for services like MySQL (useless if to configure it to use sockets only), FTP (although, if you are being secure you shouldnt use FTP at all), SSH and all sorts.
Comment: @Luke: cat /etc/services should give you some ideas.
Answer: One quick thing that I do early on is install DenyHosts.  It will regularly look through the /var/log/secure, looking for failed logins, and after a couple of failures, block the IP. I set it to block after the first no-such-user, on the second attempt at root, and after a couple of tries for real users (in case you mess up, but you should be using a SSH public key to login).
Comment: as you link to the sourceforge homepage - denyhosts is also available in the repository (universe) via "sudo aptitude install denyhosts"
Comment: DenyHosts seems to only detect and block ssh brute force attacks. A better choice would be fail2ban (it is available in the repos as well), which monitors a variety of things, including the apache logs among other things. Check out the community wiki at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fail2ban
Comment: good point @olaf. Most of the servers I installed it on were RHEL, where it's also in DAG's repo.
Answer: Ubuntu is based off Debian and I've found the Securing Debian Manual  to be very useful in Debian-based distributions in completely walking you through your system and checking every part. It's basically a really, really comprehensive answer to your question.
Comment: Sorry, thought the link was in the post. It's at:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/
Comment: Do you have a link for that?
Answer: I usually install RKHunter, which scans for rootkits and does integrity checks of various important system binaries. It's in the standard repo, and will run daily from cron. It's not perfect, securitywise, but it's a low-effort item to add, and it provides a measure of protection.
Answer: Install logcheck, but tweak so that you never receive messages from regular events, otherwise you'll get in the habit of ignoring the emails.
Check which processes are listening using netstat, and make sure nothing's running that doesn't need to run. Many daemons can be configured only to listen on the internal IP (or localhost) instead of all interfaces.
Answer: Do what Can suggests...
Nmap the host and disable all non-essential services. Use iptables if necessary.
Comment: On any server that is accessible via the Internet, iptables is *always* necessary. ;-)
Answer: If you're going anywhere near the Internet with the server, install an intrusion detection system like snort.
Answer: Use separate partitions for various directories like /tmp or /var and mount them with nosuid, nodev and noexec if possible.
Answer: Some firewall suggestions.
Learn to use a firewall and the concepts of properly locking a box down. Changing default ports is largely a useless thing; proper application and firewall configuration are much more important.
Both are in the Ubuntu repos:
FireHOL
has terrific documentation and very easy to learn syntax. I was able to set up a gateway/firewall in twenty minutes. The only reason I've moved away from this is that it doesn't seem to be maintained (last release 2 yrs ago). Doesn't mean it doesn't work, but...
Ferm
is another one. More iptables-like syntax, but same concept. More community maintained than FireHOL, but takes longer to pick up.
Shorewall
is what I currently use. Its documentation is extensive, and its configuration format is tabular. It took me about an hour and a half to understand all the files needed (6) to get a working firewall/gateway configuration running. It's quite powerful. TIP: The man pages for the different config files are REALLY helpful!
All of these load firewall configurations from a config file. Very effective, easier to use than iptables straight up, and (in my opinion) easier to use and manage than ufw.
Other:

I second the recommendations for SSH key use.

Set up an IDS.

Learn about AppArmor. It restricts the file access of executables to only specified directories and files it needs. Similar to SELinux in the RHEL world. It's installed and enabled with pre-configured 'profiles' for many well-used programs.
Answer: As well as other suggestions here I'll mention three that are obvious but perhaps worth mentioning for completeness:

If you don't think you need a firewall, think again. ufw is simple but designed for Ubuntu and based on iptables
Update the packages: as a minimum apply all the security patches
Document what you've done to secure the server and why. Include configuring (automated) processes to monitor logs, test the configuration and report security updates that are needed.

Securing a fresh Ubuntu server


Is there a way to change the cursor when using the brush tool in Illustrator?

Question: I can't stand how the cursor for the brush tool is an actual brush in Illustrator. It makes it really difficult to see where I am going with the brush. Is there a way to change it so that the cursor is a circle that shows you exactly where you're about to brush?
Answer: Yes, open Edit → Preferences → General (Ctrl+K)
And turn on "Use Precise Cursors"

This will change your tool tip to cross-hairs:
GIF
(This applies for all of the tools.)

Also, to quickly toggle it on/off just hit Caps Lock


How to delete emails instead of archiving them on iPhone & iPad?

Question: This summer Apple changed built-in mail app to support "archive" button (at least for GMail and GApps-based accounts), but I have found that I need to delete emails much more often than archive them. Right now the only way to delete them that I know is moving messages into Trash folder, which is quite cumbersome. Is there a way to bring back "delete" instead of "archive" button or any other way to quickly delete messages?
Answer: Simply go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Your Gmail Account and turn "Archive Messages" to "Off".
Answer: Ok, for iPad users. I just literally solved this.
 I spent around an hour (I know) going through various forums and posts until.
Go to settings> Mail,contacts,calendars > account> advanced> and change the check box from archived messages to delete.
You also have some options for changing the folder paths here, but don't worry about it.
Save the changes and click done. And next time you swipe away a message it would have a red box with trash instead of archive.
You are welcome.
Bye
Answer: One way to do this is to setup gmail using IMAP-setup instead of the normal Gmail-setup. That way you can configure if you want the messages to be archived or deleted when you push the trash-icon.
You can find Gmail IMAP settings instructions here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ22euWXYog
Answer: For iOS 13 in 2019:
Settings > Passwords & Accounts > firstname.lastname@example.com
Then:
Account > Advanced > Mail > Advanced > Move Discarded Messages Into:
Then select Archive Mailbox or Deleted Mailbox

This changes the iOS 13 Mail bottom toolbar icon to an Archive box or Trash can, respectively:


R caret and NAs

Question: I very much prefer caret for its parameter tuning ability and uniform interface, but I have observed that it always requires complete datasets (i. e. without NAs) even if the applied "naked" model allows NAs. That is very bothersome, regarding that one should apply laborous imputation methods, which are not necessary in the first place. How could one evade the imputation and still use caret advantages?
Comment: You always have to do *something* with missing values. I must say I don't really understand your question - you are looking for some one-size-fit-all approach..? If you don't want to imput NAs, then what do you want to do with them? Delete?
Comment: But what "model" does is it either ignores (deletes) this data leaving you with smaller sample; it estimates (imputs) those values; or it predicts the "NA" category (e.g. in some tree based models). What else would you like your "model" to do? Some software does those things for you automatically, but imagine that your coffee machine gave you the "default" coffee... Some software makes the "default coffee" out of NAs, but it is not the best you can get.
Comment: Are you sure that caret does not allow NAs? I've tried introducing NA with the default example in train help page and with method C5.0 train worked just fine. It failed with random forest.
Comment: I want to leave NAs there and leave it to the model to cope with NAs. If I do it with a C5.0 function in C50, for example, it could cope with NAs itself, but in this case I cannot use caret, because caret's train function allows no NAs in datasets even when I want to use the C5.0 function of C50 mentioned above.
Answer: To the train function in caret, you can pass the parameter na.action = na.pass, and no preprocessing (do not specify preProcess, leave it as its default value NULL). This will pass the NA values unmodified directly to the prediction function (this will cause prediction functions that do not support missing values to fail, for those you would need to specify preProcess to impute the missing values before calling the prediction function). For example:
train(formula,
      dataset,
      method = "C5.0",
      na.action = na.pass)

In this case, C5.0 will handle missing values by itself.
Comment: This is an interesting discussion. What would be the pitfall of adding NA as another level to a categorical predictor? If the NAs cannot be modelled or imputed, i.e. the presence of an absence is actually informative, it would seem that simply making NA an additional level makes sense?
Comment: If one uses the x, y specification in `train` having the `na.action = na.pass` option set will cause the following error: `Something is wrong; all the RMSE metric values are missing`
Answer: Have you tried recoding the NAs?  Something >3 standard deviations outside your data (e.g. -12345) should encourage C5.0 to predict them separately, like it does with NAs.
Answer: I think your solution would be to impute the values while using the predict() function.
See ?predict.train for more details.
You can use na.omit to allow caret to impute values. For example:
    ## S3 method for class 'train':
    predict((object, newdata = NULL, type = "raw", na.action = na.omit, ...)

from http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/caret/docs/predict.train
Another solution would be to impute while preprocessing the data:
    ## S3 method for class 'default':
    preProcess(x,
       method = "knnImpute",   # or *bagImpute* / *medianImpute*
       pcaComp = 10,
       na.remove = TRUE,
       k = 5,
       knnSummary = mean,
       outcome = NULL,
       fudge = .2,
       numUnique = 3,
       verbose = TRUE,
       )

from http://www.inside-r.org/node/86978

R caret and NAs


Sending mouse events to another windows, C# under Win 7

Question: Is there a way to send mouse events to another window in Window 7 ?
I used to do this :

[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
    public static extern void mouse_event(long dwFlags, long dx, long dy, long cButtons, long dwExtraInfo);

But this does not seem to work anymore in Win7.
Any ideas ?

Thanks.
Answer: Not work how?
One thing that might be relevant (it's hard because you've given so little detail) is that non-elevated (under UAC) apps are not allowed to communicate with elevated ones. So if one app is elevated and one not, you would say it "doesn't seem to work". But you can't fix that by changing the API you use.
Answer: The most likely reason that this is not working for you is the fact that the P/Invoke signature that you are using is incorrect. You have specified the arguments as long which in .NET represents a 64bit integer. The Win32 API decleration has the arguments defined as DWORD, which represents 32 bit integers, this will result in a stack imbalance. Change your signature to the following and you should have better luck.
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern void mouse_event(Int32 dwFlags, Int32 dx, Int32 dy, Int32 cButtons, Int32 dwExtraInfo);

Also, you should consider Kate's point and this might also have a bearing on your results once the signature is fixed.
Answer: SendMessage in user32.dll: would do the trick.
You'll also probably need FindWindow and the WM constants.
pinvoke.net is good for this sort of stuff.


When does one stay up all night?

Question: Can we get a complete list of occasions (dates or other occasions) on which someone (everyone, or just those with a particular circumstance) stays up all night (on purpose)?
Answer: This answer is marked "community wiki"; please add to it.

The first night of Shavuos. (MB 494:1.)
The second night of Shavuos. (Custom mentioned by Shaloh and Yesod Veshoresh Ha'avodah, though practiced by only a select few.)
The night of Yom Kipur. (Implied by Rama 619:6.)
The night of Hosha'na Raba. (MB 664:1 talks about being up that night. He doesn't specify that it's all night, but I assume he means as much. The Chabad custom, at least, is to stay up all night - Sefer Hasichos 5702, p. 100; I don't know whether this is true in other circles, though.)
The first night of Pesach. (Tosefta says one should stay up discussing Yetzias Mitzrayim until sleep overtakes him. This is quoted in the Shulchan Aruch. Haggada discusses story where the Rabbis stayed up all night.)
The seventh night of Pesach. (Custom mentioned in Yesod Veshoresh Ha'avodah, and practiced by various groups of chassidim.)
The night before a bris (vach nacht), the father and the sandek (and maybe also the mohel; not sure about this) stay up and learn, to protect the child. (Zohar, Lech Lecha)
There are some that don't sleep on shabbat (not a halacha, but there is something to it,  Chesed Lalafim 231:2, Likras Shabbos 2:29:footnote 8, see Tzitz Eliezer 7:23, Nishmas Shabbos 2:426)
Thursday night many in yeshivos stay up for a "mishmar" learning all night (or part of it). Living Jewish: Values, Practices and Traditions
Comment: The _Chesed Laalafim_ sounds like he's talking about every day, not _Shabas_, when he mentions not sleeping. Am I reading it wrong?
Comment: I don't really know (I don't have a copy of the sefer), I've just heard of the minhag and the looked online for sources. (http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/weekly_torah.php?id=28)
Comment: I really would like to know that
Comment: I think the artscoll biography of R'Yakov Kaminetsky mentions how in Europe they used to stay up Friday night learning. In fact, they would make shacharis later to allow the people staying up more time to learn!
Comment: @soandos, that Web page talks about _Shabas_ __day__.

When does one stay up all night?


Why are unrounded front vowels and rounded back vowels much more common than rounded front and unrounded back vowels?

Question: While many languages possess unrounded front vowels (e. g. /e/ and /i/) and rounded back vowels (e. g. /o/ and /u/), rounded front vowels (e. g. /y/ and /ø/) as well as unrounded back vowels (e. g. /ɤ/ and /ɯ/) seem to be far less common. Is there a reason for the statistic correlation between vowel backness and rounding? Does for example rounding facilitate the pronunciation of back vowels?
Answer: The essential acoustic difference between front vowels and back vowels is their difference in F2: back vowels have a lower F2 than do front vowels. This is because the front cavity (which correlates with F2) of back vowels is longer than that of front vowels, and the longer the tube, the lower the resonance frequency. Lip rounding has a similar effect: rounding a vowel makes the front cavity longer, lowering F2. When backness correlates with roundness (front unrounded, or back rounded), vowel identification is easiest.
Comment: I've been told by lots of American English speakers that "it sounds like there's an R in _Goethe_", which is because the American postvocalic /r/ is rounded like German /ø/, and the vowel in both stressed syllables is centralized.
Comment: An interesting effect of this is that even though if you just judge in terms of phonological "features" like front/back and rounded/unrounded, a vowel like /ø/ is "closer" to /e/ or /o/ than it is to /ɤ/, in borrowings sometimes foreign /ø/ is adapted as /ɤ/ or vice versa: e.g. in [Vietnamese loanwords from French](https://www.yoonjungkang.com/uploads/1/1/6/2/11625099/mitphonologyproceedingsvietnamese_really_final.pdf), /ɤ/ is apparently used as the equivalent of French /ø/ and /œ/, even though Vietnamese has both /e/ and /o/ and makes use of /i/, /u/ or /wi/ for French /y/.
Comment: (Although I guess part of the reason for the use of Vietnamese /ɤ/ for French /ø/ and /œ/ might be phonological rather than phonetic: in French /ø/ and /œ/ are identified with the French schwa sound.) Another example could be the use of the NURSE vowel in English in place of German front rounded /øː/ (e.g. in Goethe).


Squeeze Server freezing under heavy cpu / disk / network load

Question: i would like to ask for help since i am feeling a bit clueless here.
I recently bought a low end dedicated machine that was supposed to host
some services: squid, proftpd and rtorrent.
I installed debian lenny and immediately updated to squeeze and
configured the services. I started rtorrent but after the machine
reaches heavy load ( > 10MBps network traffic, maxed out cpu), it holds
for a while then all network connections drop and i have to order a hard
reset in order to bring it back online.
I thought it was a misconfiguration issue, so i tried reconfiguring the
server and installing ubuntu 10.04 on it, but i'm getting the same results.
I had a look at /var/log/kernel.log and on ubuntu i am seeing some
"Clocksource tsc unstable" messages right before the machine crashes.
I can see the same kind of messages on squeeze aswell, just not that
close to the reboots as they were on ubuntu. Google tells me they might
have something to do with cpu frequency scaling. There's loads of
reports by users like me who are experiencing random freezes. Seems
though that there is no clear answer: people solved the issue with video
card driver updates, replacing bad hardware, changing the frequency
scaling governor, and so on.
So far i only played around with the frequency scaling governor, setting
it to "performance" seems to freeze the machine quicker than with the
default "ondemand".
Here are the cpu specs of the machine:
<code># cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 39
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+
stepping        : 1
cpu MHz         : 2200.000
cache size      : 1024 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt
lm 3dnowext 3dnow up pni lahf_lm
bogomips        : 4398.97
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
conservative userspace powersave ondemand performance

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
1000000 1800000 2000000 2200000

# cat /sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/available_clocksource
acpi_pm
</code>
I asked the datacenter support to perform a hardware check and they
tested the machine for 8 hours without errors.
Now. How can i find out what's going on with this server? I'm pretty
sure its faulty hardware, but i have no proof to show to the datacenter
support.
I am currently running squeeze 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem. The machine has
1024MB of ram and 2x160Gb Sata HDDs. The NIC is a 100MBit realtek one,
with proper drivers from the firmware-realtek debian package.
I would love to have some opinions on how to deal with this.
Answer: You should collect some statistics, probably using Cacti or Nagios w/PNP4Nagios or NagiosGrapher. Probably a load on the server was so high it just got to unresponsive state. This behaviour is not caused by problems in kernel or in environment since too much load is a problem by itself. Maybe you should find proper resource usage limits.
Comment: I will set up a remote syslog server, since it seems like a decent solution in dealing with this kind of issues. I still don't think that much load should kill the machine and leave it in that state until a hard reset. It's an old machine, but i've set up older ones and those were just crunching the workload out, becoming really slow, but never unresponsive.
Answer: Have you tried capping the resources that rtorrent uses?
I had a similar problem and I was able to alleviate my problems by limiting the amount of memory rtorrent uses.
In the rtorrent config, the parameter is max_memory_usage and is in bytes.
For example, I set mine to:
<code>max_memory_usage = 268435456
</code>


Permanently disable previews in Slack

Question: How can I disable image and video previews in Slack? I've found the <code>/collapse</code> command, but that only seems to collapse existing media in the current channel. What I want is for future ones not to preview at all.
Answer: On the browser view, click on the drop down menu next to your team's name on  Preferences. Then click on Messages and media on the left-hand side. Then, under the section Inline Media & Links you will find checkboxes for

Expand images and files uploaded to Slack
Expand links to images, video and audio from external sources

Even if it is an image larger than 2MB

Expand website links to show a preview of the content, when available

Uncheck whichever of those that you want and you are set!
Comment: Can this be done at a team / organization level for all users? Also is it possible to selectively do this for certain domains?
Comment: What does this do, exactly? Does it change how my client changes my inbound messages? What I _want_ to do is change how other people see my outbound messages, so I'm not spamming them with walls of link previews.
Comment: This also works in the slack app on mac.
Comment: @jameshfisher Yes, it's purely client-side.  The actual message content is unchanged and doesn't include any preview information in either case (I have been playing with the API recently).  Your recipients will have to turn it off if they don't want the previews.

Permanently disable previews in Slack


At what speed does it seem like you are going lightspeed due to time dilation?

Question: Due to relativity, if you are onboard a ship going at 99.999% the speed of light, it seems to you that you travel multiple light years per year, even though from an outside perspective you take just over a year per light year. So, at what point as a fraction of C does it seem to you onboard a relativistic spacecraft like you are moving at one-light year per internal year?
Comment: All velocities are relative, so you can't really go 99.999% the speed of light, you can only do that in reference to other objects. However, I understand what you're askng. You can google to find the relativistic formulas, but I'm almost sure the answer is sqrt(2)/2 times the speed of light.
Comment: @qazwsx : Clocks themselves (i.e. with no external reference) are not aware of time dilation, they just keep doing their thing. If they were able to notice relativistic effects, they'd be able to compute their speed relative to an inertial frame.
Comment: I don't think there is a good definition of "seem like", as there are no studies (AFAIK) on how humans perceive time/space dilation effects.
Comment: @Mefitico it does not have to be a human, I'm just talking about what the internal clocks would show
Comment: The concept of rapidity is relevant to your question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapidity
Answer: Clarifying the question (I hope): your spaceship leaves point A, accelerates up to some relativistic speed relative to A, coasts for a while, then decelerates to rest at some point B. A and B are at rest relative to each other, with a distance of say 1 light year (we could send a light signal from A to B to A in two years), and the ship accelerates quickly enough that we can ignore the acceleration and deceleration phases and pretend that the ship was traveling at a constant speed (relative to both A and B) basically 100% of the time. How fast should that speed be so that the subjective time experienced by someone on the ship is equal to the light-time from A to B? We know that the answer is larger than 0 (at non-relativistic speeds it takes more than 1 year to go 1 light-year) and less than $c$ (at the limit of $c$ it takes zero subjective time to go any distance).
Let's use natural units for speed, i.e. $v = 0.5$ means one-half lightspeed. Then time dilation is $\gamma = \sqrt{1 - v^2}$. We want to know when our "subjective speed", which is our speed divided by our time dilation factor, equals 1: $\frac{v}{\sqrt{1 - v^2}} = 1$. A little re-arranging turns this into $v^2 = 1 - v^2$ and then to $v = \frac{1}{\sqrt 2}$. So there you are: under some simplifying assumptions, a 1-light-year trip takes 1 subjective year at approximately 70.7% times the speed of light.
Answer: This never happens due to length contraction. As the person moving, you will think you are traveling less distance, and an outside observer will observe you taking more time. These effects lead to both observers measuring the same speed.
Comment: I meant external distance- if I'm going to a star 4 light years away, how fast do I need to go there and age 4 years


Is it possible to use a SD card as virtual memory in OS X Server?

Question: I have a 8gb High Performance SD card that I would like to use as swap (virtual memory).  Is this possible in Mac OS X Server, and if so how do I go about doing this?
Comment: My advice - don't do this. Even if SD card appears fast, it's when writes are aligned and full blocks. Those cards are designed to do large sequential reads/writes, in those scenario they are useless (very low IOPS with small blocks).
Comment: May I ask why you want to do this? It seems like a horrible idea - even a high performance SD card isn't going to be as fast as a hard drive, and having a non-standard configuration that wasn't tested by Apple is just begging for trouble.
Comment: Look here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/1469/14994
Comment: Get an SSD for that...
Answer: You probably can use an SD card as a backing store.
However: you should not expect a good result. See the up-voted comments.
Answer: No - the Mac OS doesn't have an accelerate feature where extra storage swaps files (or anything else for that matter). The best you could do is try to disable swap - move the swapfile directory to the card and re-start the dynamic pager.
Here are a few questions to get you started:

Why would I disable swap file in Mac OS X?
How can I move virtual memory swap files to a different drive or partition?

Also - for the purposes of VM mechanics, the server OS and the normal OS behave the same.
Comment: I'd love to see some stats on whether this speeds things up or not. Several well respected developers have been dabbling with disabling the dynamic_pager entirely as their macs have become gunked up and slow. I don't have a good tuning guide or know if there's even a problem with the default paging setup or they have odd setups where other things are exacerbating the VM's overhead. My guess is all the new Lion things have introduced some extra complexity that can cause undesirable performance more so than in the past. Time will tell if this is so...
Comment: When I experimented in Mountain Lion, having swap enabled would indeed make the system *faster*, albeit *less responsive* when actually swapping as expected.
Comment: I would like these details as well, as this is the motivating reason why I'm looking into doing this.
Answer: This is what I'll do.
a) Disable VM
b) Delete the original folder where the system stores swap files
c) Create a alias to a folder in the SD Card and change its name to match the folder you deleted.
d) Enable VM and see if it works, if it doesn't it PROBABLY won't crash the system, VM SHOULD simply fall back and NOT turn on.
I strongly don't recommend this, SD Card won't be any faster than HD in terms of performance.
I will recommend alias (if it works), because that way you can just delete the alias if you changed your mind.
Comment: In Super User: [Should I symlink my /private/var/vm dir to another volume in OS X Lion?](http://superuser.com/q/337674/84988)


Label and labelbox mismatched in Pymol after ray

Question: I would like to ask how to overcome the problem of mismatched boxes and labels (pic). Is there an option focused on this?
thanks
Radim
Answer: It is a glitch in PyMOL.
Caveat. I would say that, whereas cmd.label is great for adding labels en-mass for internal figures, it is not great for figures for dissemination (which require few strategically placed labels possibly with a faint white outer glow —cf. your D330): most figures in papers I would say are Powerpoint or Photoshop labelled.
You called it 'labelbox', this is not a normal term, so you may be using a custom script. The box is normally called a bounding box and connector line. To add it you need to set a few values. You may have done the following:
label name CA and resi 44, 'Foo'
set label_outline_color, 0xff8c69  # font colour to salmon
set label_connector_color, 0xff8c69 # connect or bounding box
set label_bg_outline, true  # adds a border (lowercase bool)
set label_connector, true   # adds a line
set label_connector_mode, 1 # how the line looks label_position
set label_position, [5, 5, 5]  # offset the label
set ray_label_connector_flat, true # cylinders as line? No thanks.

The issue is the set label_position, [5, 5, 5]. If you give the camera-based reference vector [0,0,5] you get no line as Z is depth. This ray traces fine. Otherwise the glitch you found happens. My guess is that the box (but not the label) gets calculated based on the viewport window size, not the ray trace window size. So my guess is that there is a resolution and ray trace window size combination just right that they do align... but on my machine at least this is low res.
To make matters worse, the shadow is horrendous and in a random location and label_shadow_mode does not stop it. Let's not even discuss ray_label_connector_flat. So the best way to avoid this is to simply label in Photoshop, which is much more convenient anyway.


Are all the mods trinitarians?

Question: There seems to be persistent pro-trinitarian bias on Christianity SE. Are there any non-trinitarian mods on C SE?
Comment: Mason Wheeler at least has a LDS background. I don't know what his current beliefs are.
Comment: @curiousdannii Never encountered Mason Wheeler in a moderating role that I can remember - didn't even know he was one. Always you, Peter Turner, Ken Graham. How active is Wheeler in his moderating role nowadays?
Comment: Less active, but not inactive.
Comment: Cleaned up the comments as a separate question was asked on moderator activity.
Answer: I thoroughly disagree with your claim. I have had far stronger moderation in regard to my own questions and answers (who am a lifelong Trinitarian) than the answer which prompted your present question.
The site requires persistent and forceful moderation or it would descend into argumentative chaos very quickly.
Until I really appreciated the difficulties of maintaining a site such as this, I, too, had many questions and many comments directed at my work. And the discipline did me good, nor do I object in the slightest.
As I observed today, your answer was incorrect and not in keeping with the spirit of the question. Your answer was merely a link to a very poorly expressed piece of writing which in no way answered the question.
The question was about Early Church Christians which the vast majority would take to be Christians in the early Church and their response to the apostolic teaching of the apostles.
The linked article took the words of the apostles and misrepresented  their teaching, but did not, once, quote from persons in the early church who received that teaching.
The response from moderation was purely on academic grounds, the correct procedure to answer that particular question.
I disagree entirely with your assessment of the situation.
I believe it to be unfounded.
Comment: @AnthonyBurg It's unfortunate the OP said that, however I can't see how that kind of question would be in scope here. We want to avoid sectarian bickering, not invite it with such questions. I think the question as it is now is essentially objectively answerable, which would not be the case if its scope included NT authors.
Comment: @AnthonyBurg No, the OP never said that. They said they were open to the NT being used as evidence of early church beliefs. And it is. It would be appropriate to include in a book on the early church. But I don't think it's the kind of evidence that can be used in productive answers here. But I'm only one person, and if you want to make your case that your answer should be undeleted, please do so, in a new Meta post.
Comment: "not in keeping with the spirit of the question" I asked the OP before answering whether he'd be interested in a NT answer. He said "A priori, I don't see any reason why not. If you can properly justify why you think the NT denies the divinity of Jesus beyond any reasonable doubt, then sure, go ahead and quote the NT as your source." You're wrong! "who received that teaching" How in the world do you know this?
Comment: Although, this isn't really a response to the question I asked.
Comment: @curiousdannii "however I can't see how that kind of question would be in scope here" Seems pretty clearly in scope if it's a Biblical Basis question. No?
Comment: But it wasn't a Biblical Basis question? I don't know what you're trying to say.
Comment: @curiousdannii Why are you saying it couldn't be a Biblical Basis question? The OP said he was interested in a Biblical Basis answer.
Comment: @AnthonyBurg It's a church history question, completely different from a Biblical basis question. A Biblical basis question would be "what is the Biblical basis for rejecting the divinity of Jesus?" which would be fine, but it's not what was asked.
Comment: @curiousdannii How do you know it was a church history question? The OP said he was open to it being a Biblical Basis question. It seems it was actually a hybrid until you arbitrarily modified the question. Are hybrid Church History - Biblical Basis questions not allowed on C SE?
Comment: @curiousdannii Why do you think the Biblical basis for something isn't evidence? To the extent there is a Biblical basis for something, that is *evidence* for that something. You seem to have 2 different categories, Biblical Basis and Church History, and never shall the two meet! In reality, evidence for 1st C Church History is largely what's in the NT.
Answer: Do you believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married?  If you don't, and you noticed a user coloring all their answers with that assertion whether or not it belonged, would you flag that post?  If you did flag that post, you left it up to a mod to decide what to do with it.  The mod can

put a long winded warning that turns into an argument
put an automatic post notice that never gets acted on
delete the post with a comment
delete the post with no comment
do nothing
leave it to another mod

The most likely thing to happen is for the post to be deleted, it stops further argument, forces the user the correct something if they want to participate in good faith and if it is ignored, then it's at least not another broken window.
So to this example, if you were of Dan Brown's ilk and you liked to post about that all the time, you might find yourself deleted.  If I post about Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces on everything, that'll be deleted too. There's lots of ways to get your posts deleted.
Comment: Yes, your post reminds me of at least one Catholic member of this site whose posts get deleted far more frequently than anyone else involved in this discussion here!
Comment: What does this have to do with the question?
Comment: @AnthonyBurg you're asking if all the mods are Trinitarians, but that's utterly irrelevant. I used to complain that all the mods on Programmse.SE weren't real programmers. (then they changed the name of the site and I don't hang out there any more).  The real question is "are the mods patient and fair?"  If the answer is no, then we have a problem, but I don't think the answer is no.  I do think we could stand to leave negative vote-getting answers undeleted and not go out of our way to delete them unless someone flags 'em. But I'm not sure that applies in your case.
Comment: "But I'm not sure that applies in your case." What do you mean by this?
Comment: @PeterTurner Why did you post this answer about Jesus and Mary Magdalene? What does it have to do with the question?
Comment: @anthony just making an analogy,  what does your question have to do with the question?
Comment: @PeterTurner Just making an analogy to what?
Comment: To non-trinitarianism.  I'm hoping you'd take umbrage at the assertion that Our Lord was married,  but at the very least you'd see that bringing up that sort of an idea would only be appropriate on questions where it is asked for.  We don't allow "generic Christianity questions" here, if you see a question that looks like it should have multiple viable answers from different perspectives or is based on false premises, please Vote to Close or comment to that effect.  Answering the question just proves it is a bad question while wasting your time.

Are all the mods trinitarians?


Alarming sound for indicator symbols on the instrument cluster on Hyundai i30

Question: So, I recently bought a Hyundai i30 2014 model, the car works flawlessly except that I don't hear an Alarming sound for indicator symbols on the instrument cluster. For instance Alarm to pull down the hand brake, not wearing the seat belt, etc. I was wondering if this was somehow disabled by the previous owner and if there's a way I can enable it again. Many a times, I ran my car with hand brakes on as I didn't pay attention to the instrument cluster board, if there would be an alarm for that, it would really help.
Comment: So what happens if the oil warning light comes on? would you see that?
Comment: Haven't faced a situation where engine oil is low, so can't really comment what happens then.
Answer: There can be multiple explanations for this:
1. Disabled the speaker through OBD port (some manufactures give you an option to disable this in the software using a laptop connected to your OBD port). This can only be done with special software and hardware.
2. Unplugged/removed the physical speaker under the dashboard.(This happened to my car, they just cut the wires and pulled the speaker)
3. Broken wire to the speaker making it so it can't generate a sound.
If you are handy enough you can either search the internet or the manual to find the location of the speaker and troubleshoot it from there.
Comment: thanks ill try to figure out what might be causing this.
Comment: @Spaniard89 Let me know what you find out. Ofcourse there are more options then i explained above but its a start.


Final Cut Pro X editing multiple overlayed images

Question: This is less a direct problem more a query on the best way to handle things.  I do a lot of videos that end up with a lot of overlayed graphics, the videos are a boardgame and the overlays are the cards held in the players hands.  I cant video the hands so I scan the cards and overlay them afterwards in FCPX and then animate them in and out as required, but this leads me to have loooooads of layers in the end.  Im wondering if there is an easier way at all to handle this?
Answer: You could try to use a compound clip for the hand of one player with the cards inside. That would reduce the main timeline from look confusing with too many clips attached.
Comment: Do compound clips add overly to the background rendering?  And when I want to then modify the layout of the cards (for example as they are played etc bringing them to the center of the screen when the player announces they are being played) is there a way to go to that point in the compound clip easily or do I just have to note the time that Im at then go into it and scroll to the right point?
Comment: I am not sure about the background rendering but my guess compound clips have no effect. Normally I have background rendering completely off, as I mainly work with proxies. Just for the export, I change to original media. When place your playhead at the position you want to edit and click 'Open Clip' the playhead is at the corresponding position in the compound clip.


3d Extruder temperature lower automatically (Prusi I3)

Question: when I command to start print from SD card; extruder temperature raise slowly and print start but with in 4-5 minutes suddenly Extruder temperature lower automatically.
Comment: Can you please elaborate on your question more? It is currently unclear what you're asking.
Answer: Please consider to reference your precise model (genuine Prusa i3 or clone?) as well as the slicer software you are using.
You should be able to note from the panel information what layer the change appears. For example, if you are printing 0.200 mm layer thickness and the temperature change begins at 10.200 height, you have an important piece of information.
Open your gcode file in a text editor and look for the Z reference in the 10.000 or 10.200 range, along with the temperature gcode command. According to the reprap wiki,, the gcode command to set extruder temperature is M104 followed by Sxxx where xxx = temperature in °C. For example, you should see something like this near the beginning of the gcode
M104 S205; set extruder temperature to 205°C (comments mine, some slicers also include comments)
but if your gcode is faulty, later in the body of the gcode you may see a similar command:
M104 S000;
the number after the S could be anything. Consider to examine any M10x codes as there are different results for various codes.
If you find you have a dropped extruder temperature due to the gcode, double check your slicer settings to see if a second process has been initiated.
I have a dual extruder printer and will usually keep the second extruder cold until just a few layers prior to printing supports at a level above the bed, then turn it on to do the supports, then back off for the rest of the print.
Comment: I think it's easier to search for "M104" in gcode file. Also Z range and exact temperature target can be seen on LCD if present


Opening bios update file for p8z77-v deluxe motherboard

Question: When I download the Bios update file I get this: P8Z77-V-DELUXE-ASUS-1805.zip. When I try to open it I get this: P8Z77-V-DELUXE-ASUS-1805.CAP. But Windows keep asking "the program used to create that file". It is suppose to be easy. What did I do wrong? I downloaded from this address: http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=fr-fr&m=P8Z77-V+DELUXE.
Thanks for your help.
Answer: You don't need to open this file in Windows.
To flash the new BIOS update, copy the file to the top level of a USB stick, reboot into the BIOS and use the flash update tool found there.
Comment: ...and if you have no idea what any of this means, you probably shouldn't flash your BIOS.
Comment: @Shinrai This a new (and my first) "build" and I found a lot of contradictory information concerning the necessity of updating the Bios.
Answer: If you have the ASUS AI Suite installed there should be an option to update your BIOS from Windows. From the update screen you can download from Internet or since you have already downloaded the file choose "Update BIOS from file" and follow the onscreen instructions.
NOTE: Don't have anything else running and be prepared to reboot after doing the update.