What is the difference between "harsh" and "severe"?

Question: I've been just wondering what's the difference between "severe" and "harsh". So in what ways do their nuances/usages differ? For example, when you think a teacher's a little too harsh and that he might be able to soften his comments to the children, do you say he's a little too "harsh" but not "severe", and his comments are a little too "harsh", not "severe"? And are there any alternatives? Thank you in advance!
Answer: A quote from the MW Dictionary of Synonyms (without examples here):
"Severe is applicable to persons and their looks, acts, thoughts, and utterances or to things (as laws, penalties, judgments, and styles) for which persons are responsible. In all these applications it implies rigorous standards of what is just, right, ethical, beautiful, or acceptable and unsparing or exacting adherence to them; it not only excludes every hint of laxity or indulgence but often suggests a preference for what is hard, plain, or meager (a severe teacher). Very often the word suggests harshness or even cruelty (severe criticism)."
"Harsh suggests a nature that is unfeeling, cruel, and indifferent to the pain it inflicts (a harsh critic) or when applied to things, effectiveness in promoting discomforts or in imposing rigors (a harsh rebuke)."
Compare the following examples (taken from different sources):
The country has come under severe criticism for its human rights record. [strong, neither bad not good]
Many people feel the punishment should have been more severe.
It may seem harsh to punish him, but he has to learn that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
He later regretted his harsh words. [negative]
He accused her of being unduly harsh. [negative]
Nothing can justify such harsh treatment of prisoners. [negative]
Comment: +1, harsh means negative, severe means extreme by some implied standard. "harsh words" does not need an implied standard, "severe words" almost certainly will sound weird.
Answer: My dictionary lists "harsh" as one definition of severe, and "severe" as one definition of harsh, which might suggest the words can often be used interchangably.
That said, in the context you mention, the best thing to do is consult a dictionary, and see which one seems to fit better:

harsh
  1 unpleasantly rough or jarring to the senses : drenched in a harsh white neon light | harsh guttural shouts.
  2 cruel or severe : a time of harsh military discipline.
severe
  1 (of something bad or undesirable) very great; intense : a severe shortage of technicians | a severe attack of asthma | damage is not too severe.
  • demanding great ability, skill, or resilience : a severe test of stamina.
  2 strict or harsh : the charges would have warranted a severe sentence | he is unusually severe on what he regards as tendentious pseudo-learning.

Looking at those two entries, I'd suggest harsh is the better fit.
As for "alternatives," that's what thesauri are for.
Comment: Which dictionary were your entries from?
Comment: @JLG (and to anyone else who was curious) - NOAD
Comment: Thanks. One of my dictionaries gives "harsh punishment" "harsh criticism" "harsh voice" "He is too harsh with the children" "a harsh judge", and "a harsh military discipline" is in your post, while my other dictionaries list "severe punishment" "severe criticism" "severe voice" "He is severe with his children" "a severe judge" and "the severe discipline of the marines"... so do you think "severe" and "harsh" can be used interchangeably here, or does any of these examples sound weird and unnatural to you? TIA.
Comment: @Chocolate: I think you just answered your own question. (If the dictionaries use the words interchangeably, then we should expect many contexts where the words can be used interchangeably.)


Rendering multiple layers separately causes weird black artifacts (2.79b, Cycles)

Question: I have a ground mesh which I have cloned into multiple layers. It is the same mesh, except one has a grass material, and the other is sand. I wish to render these layers into separate render layers, and then combine the result with the compositor to produce a fancy effect.
When I select only the grass layer, and render that, then everything seems fine (environment & background omitted):

Same goes for the sand layer:

But when I try to select both layers for rendering, and render, then the grass layer seems to have strange artifacts (just the grass layer, no compositor):

Looking carefully, it could just be Z fighting, since you can kind of see that the black parts are where the sand was displaced (as the sand uses displacement in it's material). But the grass render layer and sand render layer have separate scene layers selected, I can't see why this would happen.
Answer: In each layer, I toggled the other in the "Exclude bitfield", which is in the "Render Layers" tab.
Still slightly confused as to why this fixed the problem, but it works.


Proposing a tag synonym for org-mode <-- org

Question: There are currently 36 questions tagged with org, all of which, as far as I can tell, refer to org-mode, which already has a tag org-mode with 1,421 questions. Can we synonymize the two?
Comment: Sounds sensible. Let's just wait a couple of days in case somebody objects (could `org` mean anything else in the context of Emacs?).
Comment: I checked the list, and indeed they all referred to org-mode. Some of them were only very tangentially (if at all) connected to org-mode, but there was no other reason for the org tag to be used. I remove the tag from a few of those. The proposed synonym is a good idea.
Answer: There seem to be no objections, so I have created a tag synonym that maps org onto org-mode.
One further possibility: we can also merge the tags such that we remove the org tag from the 30-odd questions that have it and replace it with org-mode instead.
Merging seems sensible to me (there are around 1500 org-mode questions by comparison), but please comment on this answer if you think it should or should not be merged.
Comment: Vote for *should*
Comment: Vote for *should* --  I don't see a real reason not to.
Comment: Okay, I've gone ahead and merged the tags.  Everything should be under `org-mode` now, and `org` is mapped onto `org-mode`.


How to maximize the modulation depth?

Question: Suppose I am modulating a laser beam of a particular wavelength using AOMs. How do I ensure that I have achieved 100 % or the maximum possible modulation depth? My laser is 80 MHz rep rate laser and I am modulating it at a much lower frequency say 1MHz. I can observe the beats using a oscilloscope though.
Answer: The modulation depth is a parameter that depends on your device and sometimes there is an option to control it manually.
But when using a device reading the catalog can help you to find device's parameter such as modulation depth.
In a practical manner: The modulation depth, $M_d$ was then calculated at each ultrasound pressure using:
$$M_d=\frac{{modulated},{light}}{{total},{intensity}, {light}}$$
modulation depth was also linearly proportional to the squared ultrasound pressure.
Comment: Could you please expalin that how can I calculate the modulation depth using a oscilloscope?

How to maximize the modulation depth?


Science Fiction story where a man invents a machine that can help him watch history unfold

Question: When I started reading science fiction in 1987, I read a lot of "best of" collections and believe I found this story in one. To the best of my recollection, the story involves a man who invents a screen to watch history unfold. He watches the jfk assassination and can view all angles and sees a man on the grassy knoll.  As he updates his machine, people use it to watch life unfold in real time. A man sees his wife entering a motel with another man and the husband tracks her down to shoot them.
Comment: Like the aftermath of "The Dead Past"...
Comment: Welcome to Science Fiction & Fantasy! This question would be improved by going through the checklists here; [How to ask a good story-ID question?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9335/how-to-ask-a-good-story-id-question)
Comment: @Pcam, just to check -- are you sure that you accepted the answer you intended to for this question? The other answer seems like a very good match on the specific details you mention.
Answer: Possibly "I See You" by Damon Knight, which has indeed been collected in a number of "Best Of" anthologies.
The story jumps back and forth, mostly a second person tale of someone who grew up in the age of ubiquitous time viewer use, but it also talks about the origins, in which the inventor of the time viewer does in fact look back on the Kennedy Assassination:

By trial and error, Smith has found the settings for Dallas, November 22, 1963: Dealey Plaza, 12:25 p.m. He sees the Presidential motorcade making the turn onto Elm Street. Kennedy slumps forward, raising his hands to his throat. Smith presses a button to hold the moment in time. He scans behind the motorcade, finds the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building, finds the window. There is no one behind the barricade of cartons; the room is empty. He scans the nearby ·rooms, finds nothing. He tries the floor below. At an open window a man kneels, holding a high-powered rifle. Smith photographs him. He returns to the motorcade, watches as the second shot strikes the President. He freezes time again, scans the surrounding buildings, finds a second marksman on a roof, photographs him. Back to the motorcade.

Eventually the device gets out to public use, and it does contain a scene where a husband spots his wife having an affair... however, he's stopped before shooting her by someone spying on him (at least presumably, the story doesn't elaborate on their fate after the conversation):

In a house in Cleveland, a man watches his brother-in-law in the next room, who is watching his wife getting out of a taxi. She goes into the lobby of an apartment building. The husband watches as she gets into the elevator, rides to the fourth floor. She rings the bell beside the door marked 410. The door opens; a dark-haired man takes her in his arms; they kiss.
The brother-in-law meets him in the hall. "Don't do it, Charlie."
"Get out of my way."
"I'm not going to get out of your way, and I tell you, don't do it. Not now and not later."
"Why the hell shouldn't I?"
"Because if you do I'll kill you. If you want a divorce, OK, get a divorce. But don't lay a hand on her or I'll find you the farthest place you can go."
Comment: possibly related: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/207914/short-story-the-viewer-60s-70s-working-on-image-enhanced-viewer-man
Answer: This isn't the story you are looking for, but there is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke with a very similar premise called The Light Of Other Days.
I would recommend.
It focuses on the fact that this technology creates societal change due to the fact that privacy is destroyed overnight, as anyone can spy one anyone else throughout history.


Tax assessment paid last year

Question: Last year I had to pay a income tax assessment for a W2 I forgot to report from 2009.  Can't I report that on my taxes this season?  Where would I put this in H&R Tax at Home (Taxcut)?
Answer: On your 2011 Federal income tax return, you cannot deduct the amount paid in 2011 for Federal taxes that were due with your 2009 return, and you don't report them anywhere on your 2011 return either. If the Federal assessment for 2009 triggered a change in your State income tax return for 2009, and in 2011 you paid additional State income tax for 2009, then, if you are itemizing deductions, this State payment can be deducted on Schedule A along with the other State income tax payments for 2011.

Tax assessment paid last year


How does the Room of Requirement work?

Question: How does the Room of Requirement work? Yes, I know it's magic, but is the Hogwarts castle itself sentient?
Comment: I am surprised this hasn't been asked before.
Comment: Does "apparent sentience" mean "sentient"? Could it simply be under the effect of a charm set to do what it does? How does the snitch avoid capture? It's charmed.
Comment: It was more than sentient... A sentient life doesn't read minds.
Comment: How does the Room of Requirement work? Very well, thank you.
Answer: There is at least one piece of evidence that it is somewhat sentient.
When Neville in DH was hiding there and running out of food, the room responded by creating a NEW passage from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade, to Aberforth Hog's Head inn. Note that it picked just the right place where the owner would be sympathetic in addition to having food.
This could not possibly have been programmed in by Neville (who didn't think about just THAT solution to his hunger), nor by the original builder.
This problem solving is intelligence. Turing level. Heck, most humans would fail to find this solution.
Comment: Nice reference. Unless JKR says differently, +1 and the cigar.
Comment: @MajorStackings - LEGO cigar? :)
Comment: Do you need sentience for intelligence?
Comment: @ike - purely theoretically, no. They are somewhat distinct terms. In Potterverse Broken Math World, I wouldn't worry about the distinction though.
Answer: I think that Hogwarts castle is partially sentient at the very least. Not only does the Room of Requirement operate on, essentially, Legilimency, but the castle as a whole seems to respond to and engage in human interactions with its inhabitants.

'However,' said Dumbledore, speaking very slowly and clearly, so that none of them could miss a word, 'you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.'
Chamber of Secrets - page 195 - Bloomsbury - chapter 14, Cornelius Fudge

A castle can't respond to a request for help if it's not sentient on some level. It's the same for the Room of Requirement, as far as canon has demonstrated.

'Help me ... help me ...' Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the Hat. 'Please help me!' [...]
  A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the Hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.
Chamber of Secrets - page 235 - Bloomsbury - chapter 17, The Heir of Slytherin

As far as asking for help goes, for what it's worth, the consensus in Is the Sorting Hat necessary to ask Hogwarts for help? is that it is not the Sorting Hat that enables aid from Hogwarts, and by extension the Room of Requirement.
Answer: The room of requirement words by requiring necessity of use. That sounds complicated but Dobby explained it some.
The room's entrance must be passed three times (a magic number) while the person mentally focuses on what they need, then the room responds by magically creating the needed room.
In the case of Dumbledore's Army, they got into the same room by needing a place to train. \
For Neville he needed a place to hide out, then when he was running out of food the room created a passageway to an establishment in Hogsmeade that would give him food.
Harry accessed the room by accident when he was pacing back and forth trying to find a place to hide 'his' potion book (that was previously owned by Snape and filled with side notes).

How does the Room of Requirement work?


Join terraria server using ip address on mobile version

Question: I'm running a terraria server and would like to be able to join the world I am running via the mobile version of the game (running on Android). Is it possible to join via the mobile version using the server's ip address? So far I haven't found an option in the mobile game ui but I may be missing something.
Answer: It is possible to join a server through direct IP.
For example:
My friend is playing Terraria and wants me to join him, but we are in different places.
To join him/her you need to go to settings, find VPN, and as a VPN server IP enter his/her router's IP.
Then you should be able to see his/her game just like if you were playing on same WI-FI.
Comment: Welcome to the site! Arqade is different from a forum, in that answers should be used to answer the original question, not for discussion or to ask for more information. If you have a new question you can search the site to see if it has already been answered, or if not ask it using the "Ask  a question" button in the top right. Consider taking the [tour] to learn more about how the site works.
Comment: @Malco But this is an answer. I'm not sure what you mean.
Comment: @Wrigglenite You are correct, I must have misread/misunderstood it the first time round. I have made some minor rewording/grammar corrections to make it a bit clearer, Maciej if you feel these are incorrect feel free to make further edits using the edit button.
Answer: Got word in the discord channel for tshock that this isn't possible. Oh well. Maybe I'll setup the game on desktop and join there.


Using SFTP directories as regular directories

Question: Is it possible to use SFTP directories in a similar way to normal directories in Mathematica? I would like it if I could Import,Export,Get,Put etc to SFTP directories just as if they were normal directories. (The fact that I can't by default might indicate that mathematica is not capable of this or that it is a difficult problem, but maybe someone found some satisfying solution.)
A similar question was asked here (import file from directory using sftp) but it seems it was interpreted as just the question why an sftp directory does not work with Import and not as a request for whether anyone has an alternative that does work.
Alternatively is there a different way to connect to remote clusters than sftp so that we can import and export directly from Mathematica. (Sorry, I am not at all an expert in protocols and connecting to clusters.)

Personally I am most interested in answers that work on Ubuntu (although I am also interested in a Windows based answer.)

As Szabolcs pointed out this is probably best solved at the operator system level. I will come back and see whether there is a good appropriate answer for Mathemematica Stackexchange after I get something working. But probably the best answer is just a link to the equivalent stackexchange question for a unix based solution https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/62677/best-way-to-mount-remote-folder to the problem of mounting remotes folders.
Comment: This is best solved at the operating system level, not in Mathematica. Look for a tool that can mount an SFTP directory and show it as a normal part of the file system.
Answer: On Mac OSX I have used SSHFS to mount a SFTP volume locally. For Windows there is this. It is not free and I have no experience with it.


Is there any difference between parallel universes and multiverse?

Question: Nowadays we come across with these two terms - parallel universes and multiverse. I wonder if this is the same thing or its two entirely different principles because the names are a bit confusing to me. Can anybody please shed some light on this?
Comment: According to wiki: `The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.`
Answer: I'd like to see the notion "parallel universe" restricted to universes similar to each other in some sense. This applies best to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Two universes in this sense can be almost identical, just different in a couple of quantum states.
Two such parallel universes could be interpreted (in the simplest case) as two elements of a Hilbert space. A Hilbert space defines a metric as a measure of distance between two elements (here applied to universes).
This may be seen in some analogy to points (universes as analog) in an Euclidean plane (many-worlds multiverse as analog). Here the notion "parallel" can make some sense. At least, it's possible to compare the items in some way (by the distance between two points/universes).
Talking of universes as parallel in the very general case of items in a multiverse, when there is no similarity at all between these items, would be a bit too lax in my eyes.
Comment: Right, certainly not meant to be all encompassing but for anything which we can coherently refer to as a universe but which cannot be coherently referred to as parallel (using the constraints you cited), then I think "alternate" is an appropriate modifier.
Comment: In the latter case of general items in a multiverse, I would suggest "alternate universe".
Comment: @called2voyage Above some level of generality there is no way anymore to put everything into one self-consistent notion. Even the notion "universe" gets undefined at some point. We could call it "objects of an omega-universe" comprising all meta(n)-levels for finite n. But structures beyond can be defined. No structure comprising all meta(n)-levels for arbitrary transfinite n can be defined. Hence the notion of an all-comprising level-IV multiverse is nonsense. But "alternate universe" is ok for me, as long as we talk about (yet) "usual" theories within a set theory framework.
Answer: In my own mind the multiverse could consist of either multiple universes occupying the same "space" (as in different dimensions) and/or different areas of space where what we consider to be our own universe is only one "bubble", outside of which are an infinite number of other bubbles, possibly created by their own Big Bangs.
The first variant above is what I would refer to as parallel universes, i.e. not the "bubbles". Or to put it another way, The different universe instances in the multiverse could be parallel.
Note that my understanding of current hypothesis and theories in this area is very limited. These are just my own thoughts.
Comment: **Please do not use flags for technical inaccuracies or a wrong answer.** Use the downvote and comment features for this.


Photoelectric effect with electrons

Question: Consider a beam of electrons (each electron with energy E0) incident on a metal surface kept in an evacuated chamber. Then,.
(a) no electrons will be emitted as only photons can emit electrons.
(b) electrons can be emitted but all with an energy, E0.
(c) electrons can be emitted with any energy, with a maximum of E0 – ɸ (ɸ  is the work function).
(d) electron can be omitted with energy ,with a maximum of E0.
This question was in my textbook. I thought the answer would be option C but it was given the answer is option D.
I can't understand why is this so. Why can't we extend Photoelectric effect here?
Comment: Just think of what would happen if an electron "rebounded" from the surface.
Answer: You fire an electron at the metal surface with some energy $E_0$. The work function $\phi$ is the energy an electron loses when it leaves the surface, and therefore it is also the energy an electron gains when it enters the surface. So when the electron you fire at the surface passes through the surface its energy increases to $E_0+\phi$.
Assuming the incident electron manages to put all its energy into ejecting some other electron that electron will start with an energy $E_0+\phi$, lose an energy $\phi$ leaving the surface and end up with a final energy $E_0$.

Photoelectric effect with electrons


Is earning money through android apps halal?

Question: Is it halal to download free apps and have to do tasks to earn money? Or should i stay away from this?
Answer: The so-called 'gig' economy is unislamic as it is promoted as giving workers flexibility whilst they are very quiet about how this is being used to undercut workers rights and protections which had to be fought over. It's basically returning people to an early model of capitalism where people were paid by piece rates and workers were journey-men. Read, journee. Workers who work for the day and with no attention to their future.
Of course you are not in a position by yourself to stop the gig economy. And only you yourself know your own circumstances. But I'd suggest that keeping away is halal when you have other options for making a living.


Do scriptures mention of rishis, who have the power to create fully grown human beings?

Question: Do scriptures mention of rishis, who could create fully grown human beings using their power?
Comment: As per https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/23185/12304 post, Vishwamitra had such power given by Lord Shiva...
Answer: The birth of Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi is indicative of ascetic power of Rishies, who can make human take birth in full grown shape.
Drupada, after getting a humiliated defeat in a war with Arjuna and after Drona's snatching away half of his kingdom, decides to obtain a warrior son,who can kill Drona and a daughter, who can marry Arjuna, through a Yajna.
We have to remember that till then Sikhandi, a woman turned male, was the only child that Drupada had.

Then king Drupada, impelled by the desire of obtaining a son who was
to slay Drona, began, for the success of his wish, to make the
necessary preparations. (And when everything was complete) Yaja, after
having poured libations of clarified butter on the sacrificial fire,
commanded Drupada's queen, saying, 'Come hither, O queen, O
daughter-in-law of Prishata! A son and a daughter have arrived for
thee!'
Hearing this, the queen said, 'O Brahmana, my mouth is yet filled with
saffron and other perfumed things. My body also beareth many sweet
scents; I am hardly fit for accepting (the sanctified butter which is
to give me offspring). Wait for me a little, O Yaja! Wait for that
happy consummation.'
Yaja, however, replied, 'O lady, whether thou comest or waitest, why
should not the object of this sacrifice be accomplished when the
oblation hath already been prepared by me and sanctified by Upayaja's
invocations?'
"The Brahmana continued, 'Having said this, Yaja poured the sanctified
libation on the fire, whereupon arose from those flames a child
resembling a celestial who possessing the effulgence of fire, was
terrible to behold. With a crown on this head and his body encased in
excellent armour, sword in hand, and bearing a bow and arrows, he
frequently sent forth loud roars. And immediately after his birth, he
ascended an excellent chariot and went about in it for some time. Then
the Panchalas in great joy shouted, 'Excellent, Excellent.'
The very earth seemed at that time unable to bear the weight of the
Panchalas mad with joy. Then, marvellous to say, the voice of some
invisible spirit in the skies said, 'This prince hath been born for
the destruction of Drona. He shall dispel all the fears of the
Panchalas and spread their fame. He shall also remove the sorrow of
the king.'
And there arose, after this from the centre of the sacrificial
platform, a daughter also, called Panchali, who, blest with great good
fortune, was exceedingly handsome. Her eyes were black, and large as
lotus-petals, her complexion was dark, and her locks were blue and
curly. Her nails were beautifully convex, and bright as burnished
copper; her eye-brows were fair, and bosom was deep. Indeed, she
resembled the veritable daughter of a celestial born among men.
Her body gave out fragrance like that of a blue lotus, perceivable
from a distance of full two miles. Her beauty was such that she had no
equal on earth. Like a celestial herself, she could be desired (in
marriage) by a celestial, a Danava, or a: Yaksha. When this girl of
fair hips was born an incorporeal voice said, 'This dark-complexioned
girl will be the first of all women, and she will be the cause of the
destruction of many Kshatriyas.
This slender-waisted one will, in time, accomplish the purpose of the
gods, and along with her many a danger will overtake the Kauravas.' On
hearing these words, the Panchalas uttered a loud leonine roar, and
the earth was unable to bear the weight of that joyous concourse. Then
beholding the boy and the girl, the daughter-in-law of Prishata,
desiring to have them, approached Yaja and said, 'Let not these know
any one else except myself as their mother.' Yaja, desiring to do good
unto the king said, 'So be it!'
Then the Brahmanas (present there), their expectations fully
gratified, bestowed names upon the new-born pair, 'Let this son of
king Drupada, they said, be called Dhrishtadyumna, because of
his excessive audacity and because of his being born like Dyumna
with a natural mail and weapon.' And they also said, 'Because this
daughter is so dark in complexion, she should be called Krishna
(the dark).'


Is an eps Illustrator file a full vector file?

Question: If I convert a pdf file to an Illustrator eps file, will it be a full vector file that will resize appropriately?
Comment: @Wrzlprmft most likely an EPS made by Illustrator? By that token a EPS file made manually is a manual EPS, one made by Corel draw would be a corel EPS if it werent a Adobe IP infringement :)
Comment: What's an "Illustrator EPS file"?
Answer: It Depends.
The EPS format is merely a container. What is in that container can vary.
An EPS can include 100% raster data. An EPS can include 100% vector data. An EPS can include any combination of raster and vector. The simple fact that a file is saved to the EPS format does not mean it's automatically vector.
Unlike Photoshop, it is possible to create 100% vector eps files with Illustrator. However, much depends upon how any file is constructed within Illustrator. If you use the effects for shadows, or blurs, or glows, you are embedding raster data in the EPS.
So the reality is... An EPS from Illustrator can be totally vector, but it doesn't have to be.
Answer: Depends on what the file contains. Unlike a straight raster format like say a PNG file, vector formats can embed much wider amount of data. Raster files included. So no you can not draw the conclusion that a encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is automatically scalable.
If you convert a PDF to postscript via Illustrator you go trough the filters of Illustrator. Since Illustrator does not support all features of PDF files something may go wrong. Also fonts may be problematic
If on the otherhand you directly convert the  PDF to EPS you get wider support assuming the file does not contain features not supported by EPS. You can allways use the print feature of your eps viewer to make PostScript that can then be encapsulated.
So no you can not draw this conclusion. But somethong like that may happen. So one could say that it is possible that it does. If its a simple case most likely yes.
Answer: As Scott noted, if you use some of the items in the Effects menu for shadows, blurs or glows you are embedding raster data in the EPS file. But additionally, you are adding transparency, which the EPS format does not support, sometimes creating stitch lines and slices during the flattening that must take place. Saving an Illustrator file as an EPS in which transparency Effects have been used may render the file even more unusable and unscalable than originally intended.


Ways to make table top removable from base/legs

Question: I just finished my first wood project and it's a farmhouse table. I am going to be bringing this to college and I need a way to make the top removable from the base so it wont be so challenging to transport. I don't think anything involving screws will be a great idea because eventually the screw holes will get warped. What are some of your ideas to make this baby detachable??
Comment: Taking the top off will not make the base significantly smaller or more transportable unless you want to disassemble the base. Not sure what you are trying to accomplish.
Comment: How is it attached now? Without the top I would worry about the leg assembly twisting and damaging itself unless that also breaks down.
Comment: it is just resting on the legs as of now. not attached.
Comment: Well you built it, other than screws ,,, What about a chain saw and some Gorilla glue to re assemble ,,, ok probably not helpful. How is it built?
Comment: @bib make it easier to move. Not as heavy/awkward
Answer: Maybe this kind of fitting:

Each block is permanently screwed to either the top or the base. You connect the parts using a supplied machine screw (not a wood screw).
Comment: +1 Basically machined cleats. The same could be done with wooden cleats and nuts bolt and washers, but these are elegant.


Are there any linux terminals which can handle all key combinations?

Question: I like to use emacs in terminal mode (-nw), but it seems most (all?) terminals can't handle some key combinations - for example, C-<RET> or C-M-%. I know this is because most terminals emulate a VT-100, which didn't have these combinations. Are there any linux terminals (preferably KDE) which can handle these key combinations, or is this a fundamental limitation of all terminals?
Answer: When you press a key or key combination in a terminal, it is transmitted to the application running in the terminal as a sequence of one or more characters. For example, when you press a, the application receives a. When you press Enter, the application receives the character CR (a.k.a. ^M (pronounced "control-emm"), a.k.a. character number 13, a.k.a. \r or \015). Key combinations involving Alt are typically transmitted as the character ESC (a.ka. ^[ a.k.a. \e or \033) followed by the sequence for the key or key combination without Alt. Function keys and other key combinations are transmitted as escape sequences beginning with \e[ or \eO.
The escapes sequences are not fully standardized, and terminals typically ignore certain attributes for certain keys. For example, Ctrl+Shift+letter is often transmitted exactly like Ctrl+letter by default.
You can see what your terminal sends for a key combination by pressing Ctrl+V followed by that key combination in a shell prompt, or C-q or C-h c followed by the key combination in Emacs.
With some terminal emulators, you can configure the escape sequences for each key. On Xterm, this is done through X resources. Most setups read resources from ~/.Xresources when X starts, and you can load the file manually with xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources.
Term.VT100.translations:       #override \n\
    Ctrl ~Shift ~Meta <key>Return: string("\033[73;5~") \n\
    Ctrl Shift ~Meta <key>percent: string("\033[37;6~")

A common convention uses escape sequences of the form ESC [ number1 ; number2 ~ for function keys with modifiers. number1 indicates the function key (15 to 24 for F5 to F12 — for historical reasons, F1 through F4 have different escape sequences) and number2 indicates the modifier (2 for Shift, 3 for Meta, 5 for Ctrl, 7 for Ctrl+Meta, and add 1 for Shift with at least one of Ctrl or Meta).
Emacs translates escape sequences into its internal key representation through input-decode-map or local-function-key-map (or function-key-map before Emacs 23).
(define-key local-function-key-map "\033[73;5~" [(control return)])
(define-key local-function-key-map "\033[37;6~" [(control ?L)])

Comment: @Yossarian Yes. In addition to not conflicting, the escape sequences need to be unambiguous, i.e. no escape sequences should be a prefix of another one. This means in practice that the first character has to be `ESC` (unless you want to try some character ≥128, but that will restrict the possible input encodings) and the second character has to be something for which you want no `ESC foo` binding.
Comment: Note that [Thomas Dickey's xterm](http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.html) is under active development. With the `XTerm*modifyOtherKeys: 2` resource it will generate unique sequences even for `C-M-` combinations, but with that setting you will need to provide a lot of custom mappings (`XTerm*modifyOtherKeys: 1` is less capable but far more functional out of the box). For an example (albeit one which didn't work for me) see the `xterm-extras.el` library and the associated `.Xresources` and `.inputrc` files in the [easymacs](http://sourceforge.net/projects/easymacs/) download.
Comment: So, if I understand this correctly, I need to first define an escape sequence in my terminal which corresponds to some key combination. Then, in emacs, I need to map the escape sequence back to the key combination.
Can the escape sequence be arbitrary, as long as it doesn't conflict with those defined in `infocmp $TERM`?
Comment: I've just got round to trying what you suggested. Should `local-set-key` actually be `define-key`? The former gives an error (wrong number of arguments), while the latter works, at least for C-Enter. It seems konsole still has trouble sending C-M-%.
Comment: @Yossarian Indeed, it should be `define-key`. I don't know if Konsole's escape keys can be configured, xterm is probably more customizable than any alternative.
Comment: Cross-referencing with http://stackoverflow.com/a/17267661/324105
Comment: +1. but references to the provided facts would be quite relevant
Comment: In my terminal, backspace and ctrl+backspace both give `^?`. Is there any possible way to distinguish between backspace and ctrl+backspace?
Comment: @trusktr Maybe. It depends on your terminal emulator. You need to configure your terminal emulator to send different escape sequences.
Comment: Seems it's not possible with vte terminals yet (Gnome Terminal, Mate Terminal, Guake, etc) as far as I can tell.
Answer: For a limited but significant set of keys, assuming KDE's konsole, one may do the following to have working, complex keybindings in emacs -nw:
I will use my implementation of getting S-<RET> to work as an example:

Open a new konsole, go to settings -> current profile -> keyboard -> edit
Hit Add and make a new entry for Return+Shift and give it a useful key sequence (I chose \E[27;3 which I think is the key sequence sent by X when I was poking around with xev, but that may be wrong -- the important thing to do is make sure that it has a proper escape and doesn't conflict with anything else).
Play with it in the little test area at the bottom to make sure it is working.
Restart konsole.
Start up emacs -nw and in the scratch buffer evaluate:
(read-key-sequence-vector "Type your new key:")
then type your new key combination.

If you are unfamiliar with this, write the line out, leave the cursor at the end of the line, and hit C-x C-e to get emacs to run that line, it should say to you whatever you put in the quotes and wait for you to type something.

It should spit out a key sequence which you may bind.
(It returned [27 91 50 55 59 51] to me as opposed to the boring old [13] before I messed with the konsole keybinding.)
Add to your emacs configuration:
(define-key function-key-map [27 91 50 55 59 51] [(shift return)])

I tested it with emacs -nw in a screen session using:
(define-key ess-mode-map [(shift return)] #'ess-eval-line-and-step)
(define-key sh-mode-map [(shift return)]  #'send-line-to-shell)

Answer: There are some efforts of extending the VT protocol in a way to allow lossless keyboard input (among other features, such as graphics).
One example is notty: https://github.com/withoutboats/notty
Answer: The short answer is that it is a fundamental limitation of all terminals.
The slightly longer answer is that even if someone created a terminal that does what you want, Emacs itself would require major changes to work with this hypothetical terminal.
Comment: That's a good point about emacs, that didn't even occur to me. I guess I'll start using the gui instead.
Comment: That's what I do.


How do you choose a size for a windowing function in FFT?

Question: How does one choose the proper windowing function to apply in an FFT? What are the benefits of larger sizes and smaller ones? Which would be the best for pitch estimation? Also which window function would be best for pitch estimation?
Answer: Depending on the pitch source (voice? Instrument?), the magnitude peak from a windowed FFT may not even be good for pitch estimation.  If you are post processing FFTs as a sub-component of a more complicated pitch estimation method, then the type of post processing (parabolic log magnitude interpolation, complex Sinc interpolation, phase vocoder estimation, cepstrum, etc.) may alter the choice of more optimal windows.
A shorter FFT window provides better temporal localization for changing pitches.  A longer FFT window provides more frequency resolution, providing the spectrum stays stationary for the duration of the window width.
Comment: @Skylion : You last question would be better asked as a completely new question on this forum, with a lot more details provided as to your goal or purpose for the method requested.
Comment: It's voice. with this information. Which is better? How large should it be? I am using a Hanning Window and performing an FFT transform then looking at magnitude peaks. How should I modify my methods?


What is called the "area size that an animal usually lives in"?

Question: What is called the "area size that an animal usually lives in" or "needs for a normal life"? Is there any specific term?
Answer: Are you looking for 'Home range' (see also the definition in Encyclopaedia Britannica)? Generally, 'home range' is defined as the entire area an individual animal uses, while the 'territory' is the subset of the home range that is actually defended from conspecifics (in animals that show territoriality). 'Home range' is often delimited by the types of environments used and movement patterns of individuals.
Answer: To avoid confusion I just want to add to fileunderwater's answer the equivalent words we use to describe the "area size a population/species lives in".
The spatial range a single individual occupies is generally called home range or territory (as fileunderwater said before me).
The spatial range a single species (or population) occupies is called geographic range or species range and we call the boundaries of this range the geographic range limits or sometimes called range limits only.
Answer: Perhaps also Habitat.

The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and
  where it can find food, shelter, protection and mates for
  reproduction...


When I flush my upstairs toilet, the downstairs toilet floods and then slowly drains. What's happening?

Question: Like my long title says, downstairs toilet is flooding after either of my upstairs one flush but then it slowly drains. It drains to where there is almost no water in the base, past the normal point. The downstairs' toilet's tank also has bubbles rise up from some black cylinder part. I am obviously not a plumbing expert and just looking for advice. A family member says we have to snake the toilet, is that what we should do?
Comment: Drain issue, first there is something causing slow drain, then that backup is flooding the pipes causing the vent to not work correctly which causes the water to pulldown below its normal level.  Call a roto-rooter service, unless your good at renting a machine and figuring out where to enter the pipes with the snake.
Comment: Related: https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/38417/toilet-water-level-lowers-when-other-toilet-flushes?rq=1
Answer: Tyson's response in comment is spot on. Without knowing your house layout, you can follow the drain from the downstairs toilet to where it meets the pipe for the drain from the upstairs toilet.
Once you identify the drains intersection, look for another drain from any sink anywhere in the home that is PAST the intersection of the two toilets pipes AND closer to the main sewer drain.
If there is a sink, run water in it full, drain it, time it. Do it again, but this time flush the toilet. See if the water drains slow. This is just a simple test if do-able to "guess" whether there is a plug/buildup in the pipe where the toilets meet. Problem areas often will be at bends, turns, or where pipes are joined together. If there is buildup on the outside of the pipe, it could be a sign of buildup inside too.
There is even a possibility your issue is tree roots or broken sewer out to the main - it can be a pricey job and will only get worse.
If you can snake it, and are alright with opening the clean outs, go for it. Otherwise call a plumber. And be aware - if you were to snake haphazardly, you can do more damage than may already exist, especially if the pipes are old/brittle.
Answer: If you have a septic system that has a clog it will back up at the lowest point in home. If it's not a full tank find the pipe they pump out of and pop the cap. A broom handle is generally long enough to reach the junction. Try to work the obstruction free and Just listen for water flow and the clog should be cleared.


CommitPooler and Pooler threads in tomcat

Question: Recently, when we are tracking our product problems, this two thread have become appear too much.
My question is any one have an idea what are this two threads do?
Answer: They aren't Apache Tomcat threads - they mut be created by your application or a library it is using. Take a thread dump and the stack traces for those threads should give you a pretty good idea what code they are associated with.


How do I say "baby-faced"?

Question: How do I say "baby-faced" or childish/childlike facial features in reference to a woman and in wording suitable for an ID?
I don't know any German, but I need it for a larp ;)
Comment: "suitable for an ID" - could you clarify what you mean by that? An ID card? A user name? An identification procedure? ...?
Comment: @O.R.Mapper "LARP" means "Live Action Role Playing", so Joanna is probably looking for something that is suitable as the name of a character.
Comment: In case someone wears a babyface to achieve something, you might say something like "sie setzte ein Kleinmädchenlächeln auf"
Answer: "mit kindlichen Gesichtszügen" (which translates verbatim to "with childlike facial features").
EDIT: Sorry, I missed the reference to a LARP (Live Action Role Playing), and thought about something like an ID card or passport (which in former times contained a description, rather than a photograph, say "1,67 m, schlank, kindliches Gesicht, blaue Augen, braune Haare"). If you're looking for something that's suitable as a name, try "Püppchen" or any of Christian Geiselmann's recommendations.
Comment: But is this suitable for an ID?
Comment: not suitable for an ID and therefore that question IMHO. If it shall be pure German, just use "Babygesicht". The description "mit kindlichen Gesichtszügen" belongs more to a dictionary than one would ever say it in speech.
Comment: *Puppengesicht*, also short *Puppe*. (lit. *doll-face*)
Comment: @ChristianGeiselmann Oops, sorry, I missed the reference to a LARP, and thought about something like an ID card or passport (which in former times contained a description, rather than a photograph, say "1,67 m, schlank, kindliches Gesicht, blaue Augen, braune Haare").
Answer: Simply use "Babyface". I would bet the word is so common in German that it almost qualifies for naturalized.
However, if you want to give your larp character a name connoting being nice and lovely, "Babyface" perhaps is not the best choice. The word evokes somehow the picture of a gangster by that name. In that case, consider

Schnuckel
Schnuckelchen
Mausi
Süßer Fratz

(I immediately distance myself from the last one, because for me this sounds sexistic. But 50 years ago it may have been an accepted way of speaking about a babyfaced women. Just because people weren't aware of the implicit power claim.)
Comment: For women this is a rather harsh nickname.
Comment: "wording suitable for an ID" - wohl kaum (Spiel hin oder her).
Comment: I agree that Babyface is fine to understand in German even for non-English speakers.
Answer: In all honesty, I only heard "babyface" before, if all else fails call them "süß" (cute).
Answer: Maybe Babyface and

Babygesicht

(as well as the forementioned Puppengesicht) seem too offensive. If used in real conversation, a more common German term may be:

Kleine

Of course it is discriminatory as well, but it is more real-life discrimination.
So it depends on you: If you want to use emphasized stereotypes in your LARP (I have no real experience with that), use one of the first words, if it shall be used in conversations, I would go with Kleine.
More friendly:

Süße

But that is like Herzchen more in direction of sweety.
A more descriptive word (but not to use for direct speech) for an adult or adolescent woman looking younger would be :

Kindfrau
Comment: Your suggestions for adequate expressions in German to replace "Babyface" as a nick name for a woman are actually good. But neither of them seems to be a suitable name for a larp character. "Kleine" and "Süße" are just too unspecific. "Kindfrau"... hm... pejorative even? "Babygesicht could work, but again I find this strange as a name for a figure. More typical might be "Miss Babygesicht".
Comment: I see. Maybe you are right, maybe that depends on the larp. It would have helped to have the other nick names/IDs in that game... But "neither of them seems suitable" is then likely the same for the suggestions in your answer ;-) (I can say that, because I was the only one, who upvoted your answer till now :-) Moreover: Miss "Babygesicht" or similar construction seems a good idea, only then you could use "Miss Babyface" and the question was in my eyes to get a German name.

How do I say "baby-faced"?


Why did the Solamnic Knights choose a rose as their symbol?

Question: Any other military order who chose a flower to represent their highest ranking members would be laughed at - so why did they do so?
Comment: "Any other military order who chose a flower [...] would be laughed at" I'm guessing you've never heard of the fleur-de-lis?
Comment: What makes you believe they'd be laughed at?
Comment: Flowers (and plants) have [many different symbolic meanings,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_symbolism) well beyond the obvious "looks pretty and smells nice". Many of these symbolisms are well suited to the military. [Roses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_%28symbolism%29) in particular have enormous religious symbolism in Western tradition.
Comment: Maybe somthing cool would be better? Like __Grand-Dragon__ or __Grand-Wizard__? Google either of those two titles and see what hits you get. Names aren't everything.
Answer: The rose has a lot of symbolic meaning throughout history.

Love
Honor
Faith
Beauty
Balance
Passion
Wisdom
Intrigue
Devotion
Sensuality
Timelessness

Knights of the Rose, being the highest order, could easily want to embody a number of these symbols, such as Honor, Balance, Wisdom, Devotion, and Timelessness.

The Order of the Rose has always been the most prestigious branch of the Knights of Solamnia. The Rose Knights provide leaders, lawgivers, and exemplars to the Solamnic Knights and the world, guiding others on the path of honor by word and deed alike.
The Measure of the Rose focuses on Wisdom and Justice. DragonLance Nexus

Not sure what it is from originally, but the alternate DragonLance Nexus has this to say

Legends hold that, at the end of his Quest of Honor, Vinas Solamnus knelt in the Whitestone Glade, on Sancrist, and received the investiture by the three gods of the Knighthood, Paladine, Kiri-Jolith and Habbakhuk. When he raised, he saw a beautiful rose of gold blowing in the spot he had been kneeling. He so decided to name the highest Order of the knighthood in this way, to remind Solamnia of this sign of divine favour: and so Paladine took the golden rose, and gave it to King Vinas, who embossed it on his ancient plate armour, over his heart. From then on, the Grand Plate of the Rose has been the armour rightfully owned by the High Justice of the Order; sadly, in the days following the Cataclysm, it was lost.
Comment: I believe that last quote is from Knights of the Rose, #5 in the Warriors series, by Roland J. Green. I'm not sure if I have the book out of storage at home to check it or not.


Is it possible to call a Contracts function from a set setTimer? Web3JS

Question: I want to be able to call a function of a contract every 60-120 seconds, in my JavaScript code I have a set timer that runs for down a timer from 120 seconds down to 0 by subtracting 0.01 every 10 milliseconds, when the timer hits 0 it should be able to call a function from my solidity code then set timer variable to 120 again. Is this possible ? Tried using async await but it seems like it is ignoring that and calling the contract multiple times.
Comment: Yes, it is possible. The information that you posted, however, makes it impossible for anyone here to help you with it.
Answer: If you want to schedule a contract call to be performed every 60 seconds in javascript use the following:
<code>setInterval(callContract, 60000);
function callContract() {
  // Contract call logic here
}
</code>


In Skyrim, can I get my companion to change robes?

Question: When you give a companion armor he/she will wear whatever has the highest armor rating regardless of what sort of enchantments it may possess. You also can not remove your companion's basic apparel. So when you get a companion who is a mage, such as J'zargo or Aranea, and you want to equip them with robes they will not wear them because the robes you give them and the robes they already have on both have an armor rating of 0. I've already tried giving them armor with a higher rating so they will take off their basic robes and then take away the armor, but they just put the basic robes back on. Does anyone know how to get their mage companions to switch robes? I'm trying to get J'zargo to wear the Archmage's Robes instead of his Novice Robes of Conjuration.
Comment: have you tried giving them an option of highest magic, I was lead to believe mages ignore armor rating while choosing what to wear. J'zargo is equipped with non-removable Novice Robes and Hood and a bow. However, if he is hired as a follower and provided with another armor, should he equip the new armor, it is possible pickpocket the default one after dismissing him.
Comment: @Taz I don't think the game takes into consideration whether the companion is mage or not and solely goes by armor rating, I may be wrong though. J'zargo's Novice Robes of Conjuration decrease the cost of conjuration spells by 12% and a 50% to magicka regeneration. The Archmage's Robes decrease the cost of all spells by 15%, +50 magicka, and 100% magicka regeneration. Clearly the Archamge's Robes are better but he refuses to wear them or any robes.
Comment: not sure if this adds to anything, but i gave my follower a ring that gave +49 to health.  she wore it when i gave it, but a while later, i checked her inventory and she was wearing another ring that she must have picked up along the way.  it was just a plain ring with no enchantments.  to get her to wear my enchanted ring, i had to take away the other ring.  i've had to do that several times with necklaces, too
Answer: If you AREN'T on the pc, the only way to get J'zargo to wear those robes (as I did on my xbox 360) is get pickpocking to 100 for the "PERFECT TOUCH" perk which allows you to steal his default armor and thus allow him to wear the archmage's clothes, that's how I got it anyway.
Answer: If you are playing on PC, there are several answers to this question you might find helpful.  Notably:

You can remove all of your companion's default armor by opening console with the ~ key above tab on your keyboard then by clicking on your companion, in which case Lydia, and typing removeallitems and pressing enter. Now you will be able to place what ever you want on him/her. As a warning, if you remove their armor & weapons they will lose their infinite arrows and you will need to replace them every time she/he runs out.
Important: Make sure to remove all items from your companion's inventory before doing this because you will lose them!

and...

If you are on PC, TCG Tradable Companion Gear might help you out.

The second being a link to a mod that let's you liberally change whatever gear your followers are wearing.
Comment: Shame there isn't a non-console solution for those who play xbox and ps3.
Answer: give her the items, open the console, click onto the follower and type:
showinventory
you should now see a list of all items plus their id-codes.
Now just type:
removeitem [id of the item] [number of items to remove]
so it should look something like removeitem 0004a26b 1
Note: This id is just some creation of mine, i've got no idea what object it could be.
The id is a hexadecimal (contains a to f) number of 8 characters.
This way is better than removeallitems, for you can pick those items you want and trading items to follower seems to reset theit default equipment.
Answer: If you're on PC, you can use the console for this, much like most other Skyrim problems. If you're on Xbox 360 or PS3, you're probably screwed, much like most other Skyrim problems.
In the console, you can type help "Archmage's Robes" to get the item ID of the Archmage's Robes (or any other items you may want to equip to people later).
For the Archmage's Robes in particular there are two different versions (quest outcomes I guess?). Without +50 magicka its ID is 0007C932, and with +50 magicka it's 0010F570. Then you can open up the console, click on J'zargo, and type equipitem 0010F570 to equip the robes on him (or the other ID if you have the other version).
If he doesn't have the robes in his inventory, or if he has the wrong version, that command will actually conjure up a set of Archmage's Robes out of thin bytes and give and equip them to him.
Answer: I can't speak to Aranea as a follower as I've never taken her as one. I have taken J'zargo as a follower, though. He has no level cap(if you are level 150, so is he). At higher levels he has high to max heavy armor skill and will gladly equip some nice high quality heavy armor(well tempered and enchanted is best).
NPCs don't care about enchantments, they only care what a piece's armor rating can do for them. Also, most followers(maybe all) cannot take advantage of fortify skill enchants as only the player has a special hidden perk that allows you to use them. They can use resistances, stat increases and extra regen.
When I took J'zargo as a follower I gave him extra magicka on his gauntlets, extra regen on his armor and helmet, elemental resist on his boots and a combo of elemental and magic resists on his necklace and ring. He still only uses novice and apprentice destruction spells in combat, though. With heavy armor, he also isn't that great of a pack mule since he can't carry that much.
Answer: I found you could do in a very long winded way if you don't train in sneak (on the ps4). So marry the follower, get a home where they can set up a shop, give them some armour so they'll wear that instead, go outside and enter your followers shop and the only items they should have for sale are the ones in there inventory at the time as well as there base outfit so buy it from them and then place the outfit you want them to wear in there inventory then take armour from then and boom they should be wearing it.


It is possible to get tier demoted on season 5?

Question: Is it possible to fall from Platinum to Gold and from Gold to Silver on season 5?
Since in every season stuff like that change I would like to know. And if yes, how many games you need to lose in a row in order to get demoted?
Answer: Yes it is still possible to get demoted if your MMR is at least 1 tier below your current tier. However you wil recieve a warning first about a possible demotion.
Other than that it's obviously also possible to get demoted by the LP decay that's triggered from inactivity.
Comment: you can not fall from gold to silver due to lp decay as that was removed. I think the same may go for plat to gold but i am not very sure about that


Where is this budha from and would love to know any history of maker?

Question:
Any information I would be grateful for. I have no idea be am very curious about this any a few other items I purchased recently.
Answer: At first I thought this could be Jigme Lingpa, who's is often depicted with this typical shape of eyebrows and this style of facial hair. But on a second look, I'm pretty sure this is obviously Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism himself, thanks to the unmistakable hat, the dress with epaulets, as well as the ritual objects he holds.
According to a traditional iconographic description,

...he is white in colour with a reddish hue, one face adorned with a moustache and goatee, the right hand holds to the heart an upright gold vajra. The left hand placed in the lap holds a white skullcup filled with nectar, jewels and a long-life vase. The ornate katvanga staff of a Vajrayana mendicant decorated with streamers rests against the left shoulder. Adorned with gold earrings and necklaces, the head is covered with a lotus hat, a gift of the King of Zahor, of silk brocade topped with a half-vajra and a single vulture feather. Attired in various robes of different colours reflecting the disciplines of the Vinaya, Bodhisattva and Mantra Vehicles, he sits atop a sun and moon disc above a lotus blossom rising from the blue waters of Dhanakosha lake.

You can see the ring for the staff on your copy, while the staff itself seems to have been lost.

Here, Padmasambhava can be seen in his most well known representation. His eyes are open in a piercing gaze; his face is wrathful and smiling, blazing magnificently with mysterious power. He cradles a khatvanga in his left arm, representing his consort Mandarava, who arouses realization of emptiness. His khatvanga is crowned with three severed heads and a trident, symbolizing Padmasambhava's liberation from the three kayas of desire, form and formlessness.
He wears a lotus hat ornamented with a sun and moon, representing skillful means and wisdom. His hat also has a vajra top, symbolizing his unshakable samadhi, and is crowned with a vulture feather, representing his realization of the highest view. In his right hand he holds a vajra, an implement used in Tantric ritual to symbolize the union of conventional and ultimate truth. His left hand rests in his lap in the gesture of meditation (Dhyana Mudra) and holds a skull cup containing the vase of immortality. The vase is filled with the nectar of deathless wisdom and is adorned with leaves of a sacred flowering tree.
Comment: Thank you so much for all this information. I am very grateful for your wisdom on this subject.


How does using DCT help in image compression

Question: I once learnt that the Huffman Encoding is used to rid of redundant information, thus reducing file size. I am not sure how using a DCT, or FFT on an image can help in reducing file size. It does not work on redundancy, then how does it reduce the total amount of data?
Answer: If you take an image as is (especially a photograph, as opposed to line art, a document scan...), there's very little redundancy in it for Huffman encoding to do its work - because the image contains many small fluctuations and details which are not perceptible to the human eye but nevertheless present in the data. DCT followed by coefficient truncation/quantization eliminates the barely perceptible details and creates redundancy for Huffman compression to work on.
Comment: +1 Didn't realize that they use reduced quantization too, but that makes sense.  Much less crude then simply tossing coefficients.
Answer: The reason it works is that for most images, most of the energy is in the low frequencies and can be captured by relatively few DCT coefficients.  So what happens is the algorithms compute the DCT and only keep the high energy coefficients.  The rest are simply thrown away.  This results in some degradation in the image of course, but, assuming the algorithm did its job well, not much.
Comment: No, the numbers have less *resolution*, not less magnitude.  In other words, they are taking away the least significant bits, not the most significant.  Regarding why use the DCT, the simple (but true) answer is that it works.  Are there other functions that would work better?  Probably, but how does one find a function that works better across a wide range of images?  I am not an expert in this field, but I would guess that wavelet transforms are promising and probably the basis for the more modern algorithms.
Comment: ok so this means that the DCT result contains numbers which are smaller in magnitude and use less bits? Why not use some other type of special arbitrary function for images rather than just do a DCT?


Alerts working only when Delete Versions permission is checked

Question: I'm using Sharepoint Foundation 2010. Alerts are working only if the users have permission level that has Delete Versions permission. I want users to be able to get alerts, but not delete past versions of a list item or document.
Comment: Are you using versions/drafts? Are they trying to receive alerts on items that haven't been published to major versions, or haven't had content approval?
Answer: They should be able to get alerts just fine without those two permission levels. What you should do is create a new permission level with the ability to manage and edit the document, but without the ability to delete.

Navigate to the site of the library at hand. If permissions are being inherited from a parent site, navigate there instead.
Site Actions -> Site Permissions
Permission Levels (in ribbon)
Click the "Contribute" permission level
Go down to the bottom of the page and click "Copy Permission Level"
Name your new permission level. I chose "Contribute - NO DELETE"
Delete the permissions "Delete Items" and "Delete Versions" and Click Submit.
Reassign the users that you don't want to delete to this new permission level.


How does the key agreement process take place in Virgil E3Kit SDK for end to end encryption?

Question: I'm using Virgil E3Kit SDK to implement end-to-end encryption in my App. Their E3Kit SDK is very effective and not too hard to understand, but I still don't understand how does the key agreement process take pace in Virgil E3Kit SDK. The workflow they describe in SDK document is:
If A want to send messages with end-to-end encryption protection to B, so the steps are:

A generate her key pairs (one Public Key is published on Virgil Card Services and
one Private Key is saved securely on her own device).
B generate his key pairs.
A looks up for B's Public Key on Virgil Card Services and
uses B's Public Key to encrypt the messageA-B.
When B is received the messageA-B, he use A's Public Key to verify the messageA-B's
integrity and he uses his Private Key saved on his device to decrypt the messageA-B.

In the document page, Virgil shows algorithms that are used in Virgil E3Kit, in which:

They uses PRNG for key generation
They uses KDF2 for key derivation
They uses X25519 or ECDH for key exchange

I think both X25519 and ECDH need a new random shared secret for each secure communication session. How does Virgil E3Kit do that while both parties of communication just only need to generate their key pairs when they first register account, then they can start using end to end encryption with these key pairs forever? Virgil E3Kit uses asymmetric key exchange with X25519 or ECDH, but after that they use symmetric encryption with AES GCM to encrypt messages in endpoints.
So my questions are:

How can Virgil E3Kit SDK use symmetric key for symmetric encryption in endpoints, while they use asymmetric key exchange? And could you please illustrate and explain for me about this process?
And, what role PRNG, KDF2 (key derivation function) and X25519 or Ed25519 (Elliptic Curves) play in this key agreement process?
Answer: E3kit uses ECIES under the hood. It's a hybrid encryption scheme where symmetric key is encrypted using the key derived from the DH shared secret. KDF is needed because it's not secure to use the raw DH result as a symmetric key.


What is the best way to show categories to the user according to Google's Material Design?

Question: I have a list of categories like Food, Shopping, Electronics etc.. , which I am thinking of showing these as the main activity to the user. I think of showing the categories as a Grid View or a Table Layout with 3 columns by default and adjust rows according to the availability in the database. Is this a good user experience way? or should I go for navigation drawer or list view?
Answer: There's also another study, also done by Nielsen about navigation menus which touches the idea of categories as well.

For example, if there are a lot of categories, you may choose to
group them in bigger groups to help with quick scanning.
You can also choose to put at the top the most used or popular if you
have any data to support you in this. Or place some categories you
wish to promote and help in discoverability.
Answer: There are some questions you can ask yourself to help you make this decision:

How many categories are their going to be? 3? 6? A list is probably efficient. 9? 12? 15? A grid would reduce scrolling.
Can you accurately convey meaning with just icons? Even on a smaller screen Android device? If not, you're going to be in trouble with a grid.
How often will the user be switching between categories? If often, a grid will make it easier and quicker.
How does the category list get called? Is it a slide-out menu? Then a list is more familiar to users.

In lieu of knowing the actual usage, Neilson has researched this for us and provide a pretty conclusive outcome:

So, Text Menus or Images?
  If you've been debating whether to use a text-only list menu or an image-based grid for mobile navigation, know that they're each good at different levels in the site's information hierarchy:
For the broadest and most diverse category levels, a text menu allows users to quickly navigate to the content in which they are interested.
  Once the differences between options become more nuanced, a grid of images helps users differentiate various offerings and make a more informed selection.


How soon can I close Amazon rewards credit card after opening?

Question: I got the card today for the $70 sign up 'Gift Card', only have 2 other credit cards with $5,000+ limits with $0 balance on both and want to know when I can close the Amazon account. I only spent .70cents on it so far and want to know if closing it within a month would negatively impact my credit score? Should I instead keep it open for a year at least then close it, keeping a $0 balance the entire time?
Comment: Did the documentation you received when you opened the card state a minimum amount of time you had to keep the account open?
Comment: Does [this](https://money.stackexchange.com/a/9188/36669) answer your question?
Answer: Based on the situation you describe, I do not think there is an advantage to waiting a year. The act of closing an account affects your score because important inputs include (1) how much unused credit you have available (2) how many accounts you have open (3) the average time-length of your open accounts. All of these are of high importance and will be affected when you close the account.
However, once an account is closed, in good standing, it will have little or no effect on your score (the details of the credit score algorithm are proprietary). If it does have any effect, which I doubt, the algorithm will most likely not care whether your account was open for a month or a year before it was closed.
If you are interested in maximizing your score, as I'm sure others have told you, your best bet is likely to leave the account open. It will reduce the average age of your accounts (bad) but it will help your utilization and the number of accounts you have open (good). You can use a credit simulator like CreditKarma to get an idea of which metric is more important in your case.


What breaks the iddah?

Question: I put my wife in iddah two months ago and we had an intimate encounter last week but we did not have intercourse. I want to know if an intimate encounter without intercourse breaks the iddah or not.
Comment: Hey you can only put your wife in iddah after your death. What do you mean for iddah?
Comment: I pronouced one divorce
Answer: According to quran, The only reason for the iddet is to clarify what is in the womb. If a child is delivered the next day of iddet then it ends. Since you did not do anything that does not change this situation then the iddet continues.
The other thing to note is that would you really want to continue it since there is obviously affection between you two. The last thing that Allah wants is to break a family. You should get back to her and start building your life.
Answer: Listen brother, I don't know how you get the information about this or who told you what. But you're wrong in many aspects! How? Let me clarify this.
When is female in Iddah
First thing to note is that a wife is never in Iddah, a female is in Iddah. When she is a wife she never has to face this situation. Iddah is a situation when a female's husband is dead or divorces him.
What is Iddah for
Iddah is a term used for a female who is given a time to stay away from any male. Why? Iddah is generally used to let anything that is inside her womb to show its symptons; pregnancy. If she is pregnant, the family of her ex-husband needs to take care of that child otherwise she is allowed to marry other person on her desire.
You said that you were having an intimate time with your wife? That is total confusion for me. Because if she is your wife then she isn't in iddah, if she is in iddah then she is not your wife.
Now come two points. If she is not your wife, and you're still intimate with her then you're doing zina; since you have no right on her. But if she is your wife, then how do you say she is in iddah.
However the only answer here would be that you need to wait for the time when she is out of this period. Then you can be intimate; you'll have right on her too. But till then, just wait and be patient.
Comment: Zeesha you are incorrect. He stays her husband during the three monthly cycle waiting period called Iddah if the divorce was proclaimed once. During that time he can take her back simply by having intercourse. After the third period if he has not had intercourse the divorce becomes final.
Comment: A husband has a right to get back to his wife before the 3rd divorce. Please provide reference on your intelligent reply.

What breaks the iddah?


Live USB ubuntu can only boot when deleting casper file

Question: I installed the ubuntu 12.04 into my flash drive to create a bootable usb stick. The first time boot is smooth with no issue. But after played around with it and rebooted it, the ubuntu could not get start.
I tried both pendrivelinux and universal-usb-installer to create the bootable usb. They both have the same issue, but giving two different errors. The previous one stops with "kernel.thread helper" error. The later one ends up with a shell command environment, but can't boot ubuntu.
My flash drive is 4 GB, and I reserved 2GB room for the persistence. So I can see a 2GB casper file in the flash drive. After I delete this file, I can boot the ubuntu system again.
So I guess it might be some issue with loading the persistent data.
Any thought about how to fix this issue?
Thank you very much!
Comment: Please describe your actions more precisely. What do you mean for 'playing around'? Do you install/update packages there?
Answer: I had bad luck with the casper-rw  file too. For some reason I couldn't either boot my ubuntu usb with persistent changes nor mount it from within an installed ubuntu OS. It's something weird about my laptop hp 420 I guess, because my casper-rw file worked fine in other computers.
Anyway if you still want to boot it without persistent chances AND without deleting the casper-rw file, you can do that by deleting the "--quiet", "--splash" and "--persistent" arguments from the kernel parameters entry at the very start of the booting of ubuntu. I don't know to make those visible from USB isos created with other programs, but with unetbootin you do this by pressing tab after selecting your boot option.
Cheers.


Custom Fields - Taller editing area

Question: Don't know if this is possible, but can the custom fields be adjusted to be taller in the admin panel? It's a bit tedious to have to stretch the textbox every time you want to edit an existing field that contains a lot of text.
Comment: You would have to create your own meta boxes to achieve this, There is a few instruction on https://www.google.com/search?q=create+custom+meta+boxes on how to do this
Answer: Large »Custom Field« Textareas.
Gladly those are easy to target. Wrapped up in a small plugin:
<code><?php
! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) AND exit;
/* Plugin Name: (#65922) »kaiser« Bigger custom field textarea */

function wpse65922_big_customfield_textarea()
{
    ?>
<style type="text/css">
#the-list textarea,
#newmeta textarea {
    height: 200px;
}
</style>
    <?php
}
add_action( 'admin_head-post.php', 'wpse65922_big_customfield_textarea' );
add_action( 'admin_head-post-new.php', 'wpse65922_big_customfield_textarea' );
</code>
This targets the existing as well as the new custom fields textareas.

Go Fullscreen (built in) for the WYSIWG editor
Since some time, WordPress got the "Fullscreen" Mode. Just click it and the textbox expands to the whole screen, so you can write distraction free.
Comment: In the first snapshot, what's that icon left to WordPress logo? ::::: PS.: "Go" and "Exit fullscreen" was a nice touch, but, in the context of the question, I don't understand why you put it in the answer (?)...
Comment: @brasofilo Ad "Go/Exit") Just because we got some basic WP usage questions in the last time and I wanted to have this answered somewhere, so we can mark duplicates. Ad "icon left of logo") It's a small custom plugin, that lets me hide the WP admin bar, in case there's an error hidden below it. It's just extremely annoying to always go into the dev bar and delete the HTML node on every request and I tend to throw my errors during development at early hooks :) The icon itself is taken from the admin bar menu bottom.
Comment: Yes, indeed, sometimes the admin bar gets in the way like a kid in an adult's game... Note taken re duplicates. Danke :o[)

Custom Fields - Taller editing area


Better foot technique with daily stretching

Question: How effective is it to do daily stretching for the legs in order to get a better foot technique for kicking, like in Karate or Taekwondo. Let's say, I am stretching my legs three times a day for about 5 minutes. Will this help me to improve my foot technique or is it even harmful for the tendons and muscles to do so? I'd love to hear some experiences people made.
Comment: What do you mean by "better foot technique for kicking"?
Comment: Basically to have a better control of your feet when kicking. There are rules, how exactly your foot has to be positioned when kicking. For example, a low kick is easier to perform than a high kick. And the goal should be to be able to perform the high kick equally to the low kick, regarding the "technique". I hope you know what I mean.
Comment: So you basically ask whether regular stretching can improve technique (foot position etc.) since you do not have to compensate for your lack of flexibility - which is obviously the case - and whether the amount of stretching could be structurally damaging - which pretty much depends on your stretching exercise and how far into the pain zone you go. In other words: Without spelling out your exact problems and how you stretch this is not clear enough to be answered. And the core question (the second one) would be better asked at Fitness.SE IMHO.
Comment: Sure, maybe some, better than nothing.
Answer: I would say there is a difference between good technique and properly performing high kicks.
You can develop good technique practicing with lower kicks.
For example, a side kick involves specific movements, from chambering to the final leg extension.
These technical movement can be trained at the height your comfortable with. That could be at knee height.
Stretching will not improve your technique.
It will improve performing these techniques as high kicks.
Stretching alone is not enough enough for good high kicks.
You need the proper muscles to be developed, and much of that happens while working on the technique.
So you need both if you want to develop good high kicks.
Will stretching be harmful?
No if you don't overdo it.
Don't over value it, you don't have to do the splits for good high kicks.
It reduces resistance slowing down the movement, but technique and all the necessary tiny muscles are more important in my experience.


Is there any test for a null hypothesis of non-normality?

Question: I'm currently looking for a test having for null hypothesis that the sample does not come from observing a normally distributed random variable. In other words, I'd like to know if there's a test that's opposite to the K-S, Anderson-Darling, Shapiro-Wilk or Jarque-Bera.
Answer: I think the question is the same whether normality is the null hypothesis or the alternative.  the test is a measure of goodness of fit.  If the test is based on the traditional approach then you look for how large the test statistic should be to reject normality.  If the you make normality the alternative then you are asking how small this statistic needs to be to say the distribution is close enough to normal.
I have not seen this done but it is very much akin to equivalence testing which is done a lot in the pharmaceutical industry. For equivalence testing you want to show that your drug perform similarly to the competitor drug.  This is often done when trying to find a generic replacement for a marketed drug.  You define a small distance from 0 that you call the window of equivalence and you reject the null hypothesis when you have high confidence that the true mean difference in the performance measure is within the window of equivalence.  The method is well defined in Bill Blackwelder's paper "Proving the Null Hypothesis." The test statistics are the same or similar it is just executed differently.  For example instead of using a two-tailed t test to show that the mean difference is different from 0, you do two one-sided t tests where you need to reject both to claim equivalence.  The sample size is determined such that the power of rejecting nonequivalence when the actual mean differnce is less than some specified small value.
I think that a test to reject nonnormality could be posed in the same way.
Comment: Michael gives a good answer, but you will have problems akin to those for testing normality. When you are testing the equivalence of two means, it is easy to give an exact definition of what you are testing for. When you are testing normality (or non-normality) it can be trickier.
Comment: I think that testing for a null hypothesis that the data is not normal vs an alternative that it is means using a criteria for closeness to normality like is done with the chi-square goodness of fit test or the various tests that compare the empirical cdf such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.  It is not the same as simply applying the test in the standard way because the null and alternatives are reversed. Of course in practice this has the same problems as a traditional hypothesis problem in that data really never follow a particular distribution exactly.
Comment: So you need to say how close is close enough.
Comment: Certainly you need to say how close is close enough; but with the case of comparing means it is very clear how closeness is measured. With tests of normality, it may be less so. What if different tests of normality give different answers?
Comment: @PeterFlom different tests can always give different answers particularly in borderline cases.  The K-S test uses the maximum distance between cdfs for example
Comment: I agree with @MichaelChernick here. But I think the question is clearer with means than with normality, partly because our intuitions about means are much more developed than our intuitions about normality.
Answer: I think the problem is not well defined! You want to proove the data "do not come from a normal distribution". That is easy, accept! NO data "comes from a normal distribution", the normal distribution is at best an approximation.
But you could, of course, have goodness-of-fit tests for other distributions, say the Poisson. I don't know if there is a lot published, but what you can do, is to make a qq-plot for the choosen distribution. For the Poisson case, what you can doo is (R code):
dat <- rpois(200,10)
p <-    qpois(ppoints(200), 10)
qqplot(p,dat)

and a test statistic could be the correlation in the qqplot:
cor(p,sort(dat))
Now you can find the null distribution of this statistic by simulation:
cors <- vector(mode="numeric", length=1000)
for (i in 1:1000) {
cors[i] <- cor(qpois(ppoints(200), 10), sort(rpois(200, 10))
}
hist(cors)

In practice, you will presumably estimate the poisson mean, so you must redo the  simulation incorporating estimation of the mean. You will also probably want to increase the number of simulated samples from 1000!
The simulation incorporating estimation of the mean could be:
NSIM <- 1000
SAMPSIZE <- 200
MEAN <- 10
cors <- vector(mode="numeric", length=NSIM)
for (i in 1:NSIM) {
samp <- rpois(SAMPSIZE, MEAN)
m <- mean(samp)
cors[i] <- cor(qpois(ppoints(SAMPSIZE), m), sort(samp))
}
hist(cors)

Answer: The answer is Chi square Goodness of fit test for normal distribution
Here you can see the example http://www.stat.yale.edu/Courses/1997-98/101/chigf.htm


Why is lithium bromide used in absorption refrigerators?

Question: Lithium bromide refrigerator
Why is lithium bromide used in absorption refrigerators?  It is more expensive than sodium chloride.  The wikipedia article on lithium bromide says it is extremely hygroscopic.  However, it is less soluble in water than NaCl.  I am thinking that a salt capable of generating a more concentrated solution would work better in the absorption refrigerator as it would increase the propensity of water to leave the gas phase and enter the solution.  Am I wrong about that?  Is the affinity of water for lithium bromide so high that it is the most important factor?
Answer: Your summary is correct; $\ce{NaCl}$ is more soluble than $\ce{LiCl}$ or $\ce{CaCl2}$, for that matter, but both $\ce{LiCl}$ or $\ce{CaCl2}$ are far  more hygroscopic. The explanation of hygroscopicity involves various mechanisms, including adsorption (surface forces) and absorption (requiring transport to the interior of the substance) due to hydrogen bonding, coordinate covalent bonding etc.
So these are distinct, though related, properties: solubility (limit on how much solute the solvent holds) and hygroscopicity (how avidly the solute attaches to the initial molecules of solvent).
For that reason, $\ce{CaCl2}$ is used to absorb water in damp closets, though it will eventually deliquesce into a sodden mess.
BTW, Isaac Asimov wrote of a compound so hygroscopic that it dissolved before it hit water: The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline, often cited.
Comment: Calcium chloride does itself dissolve before hitting water! Wait long enough, and the sodden mess will be a clean solution. That's slow because the liquid has a much smaller surface.


What is tty7/tty2 in the commandline?

Question: Recently I have been playing around in terminal and typed the who command. As I see my username and date, I don't know what tty7 (tty2 on Ubuntu 17.10 and newer) or what this pts/0 is, can somebody explain this to me?
Answer: The name of TTY actually comes from the old days of computers: then computers even had  teletypewriters as terminal, so you could see the output of programs printed (tty = TeleTYpe/TeleTYpewrite).
TTY usually refers for "physical" terminals, like more attached terminals (even like a teletypewriter) to a single computer, or in our days: more separated text consoles, you can switch between them Ctrl + Alt + F1-F7 (or more, if you have configured more;  F3-F6 on Ubuntu 17.10 and newer).
In case of Ubuntu, tty7 is usually used by Xorg/Wayland display server, do provide your graphical environment (to be more exact, it provides a "windowing system" only, and things like the gnome - as a desktop environment solution - runs "top of it").
By contrast, "pts" is (one half of) a notion of "pseudo terminal" which implements terminal functionality without the context of a "real" physical terminal, for example if you open gnome-terminal, for the shell (which is usually the bash on Ubuntu systems) to be able to run, it needs terminal capabilities.
This is also the case if you use "ssh" to log in a remote machine, so in nutshell: whenever something needs terminal/tty like functionality without having a 'real' tty.
Answer: I think usually it's the display server (X server).
Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 (F3 on Ubuntu 17.10 and newer) and see if it takes you to your graphical login session (or keeps you there).
You can also open a shell and run tty.  It will tell you the name of your current terminal.
Answer: tty7 is the physical terminal from which you logged in. In many cases, tty7 is where your window manager runs and from which you login.
As can be seen from the listing below, I logged in at 9:33 on May 24 from tty7 (via Gnome window manager login dialog) and then opened 4 pseudo terminals.
[iluvblender@myhome ~]$ last | tac | egrep "May\s*24"

sgoda    tty7         :0               Wed May 24 09:33   still logged in
sgoda    pts/0        :0               Wed May 24 09:33   still logged in
sgoda    pts/2        :0               Wed May 24 09:36   still logged in
sgoda    pts/4        :0               Wed May 24 09:40   still logged in
sgoda    pts/5        :0               Wed May 24 09:42   still logged in

What is tty7/tty2 in the commandline?


iCloud problem: "iCloud storage is full" message

Question: I need help for this iCloud problem: I had no available space left, (of my 50GB plan) so, to keep using iCloud, I deleted some files. After that, instead fixing the problem, the system keep saying that "iCloud storage is full", or "there is no available space left on iCloud". I tried to deleted more files, also my iPhone backup of ~7GB, but iCloud seems not to detect I have done free space, and keep saying that there is no more storage. Has anyone had this issue? Does anyone know how to solve this?
Thank you and sorry for my English mistakes because it's not my first language.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [iCloud storage full: "Not Enough Storage". Backups exceed 5GB](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193991/icloud-storage-full-not-enough-storage-backups-exceed-5gb)
Comment: I don't need to backup my phone, I just don't understand why it doesn't fix the size of the free space after I deleted some files.
Comment: Did you work through the answers in the question pointed to by @jimmy0x52?  Your problem might be a combination of things because it's obvious.  Be sure to try the solutions from other questions that are similar to yours.
Comment: I tried everything that post suggest but anything seems to work
Comment: you need to get the numbers for how much space you are using. You can usually get that by clicking on the manage button.
Answer: Apple now has a web interface to view and manage (some of) your storage.

https://www.icloud.com/#settings

I would go there and verify that the web interface matches the iOS device. If so, then you can go to the photo library and purge the Recently Deleted or work through the options given here:

https://help.apple.com/icloud/#/mm93f1a9aac0

From your screen shot, you might need to download documents from iCloud Drive, but worst case, you will have followed the latest cleanup steps if you need to reach out to iCloud support to have them look at the code that checks free space and validate it against the lower numbers you are being shown on your Mac.

Apple also provides free support for accounts like AppleID and iCloud so you can get personalized help from:

https://support.apple.com/
Comment: I'll try to contact the Apple support because anything seems to work
Comment: @G.Guidi That's fair - I'll add that to the answer.


Storing JSON data in Blockchain is it good idea?

Question: I want to know, that storing JSON data in Blockchain is good idea or we can get some error? Beacuse if we enter all our data in struct we get "InternalCompilerError: Stack too deep, try removing local variables". Using Solidty compiler 0.4.26. By the way in blockchain have any limitation in string length? and how many bytes blockchain can store?
Thank you very much for your answers!
Cincerly, Mike!
Comment: Ipfs or dfinity
Answer: No you should not store lots of data in Ethereum. Mostly because it gets very expensive. Here are some reference numbers: What is the cost to store 1KB, 10KB, 100KB worth of data into the ethereum blockchain?
Ethereum is not meant for storing large amount of data. What is typically done, is that you store the data somewhere else (for example IPFS or just your local hard drive) and store its hash value in Ethereum - then you can later prove which document generates that hash value and that the document hasn't been altered.
Otherwise, in theory, a string can store any amount of data: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/50241/is-there-a-solidity-string-limit-of-32-bytes#:~:text=A%20variable%20of%20type%20bytes32,a%20string%20of%20any%20size . But a contract size is also limited to 24kB: How big could a contract be?
Also you should update your Solidity version - the newest version is around 0.8.1.
Comment: Thanks, Lauri Peltonen!
but how to work with 0.8.1. Just could you send me some info about working with converting storage to memory types.
Thank you.


A simple display for Raspberry Pi 2 B+

Question: I want to use RasPi to display continously some simple data (like today's weather). The thing is that I don't want to use this screen  to display the Raspian console on it. I would like to control the screen directly from GPIO pins and construct the basic visual information that I need.
Do you have any suggestions? Could an old phone screen work?
Comment: Adafruit (among others) has a multitude of displays for the Pi, e.g. the Adafruit PiTFT Plus 320x240 2.8". Your question is quite broad and got a *dangerous* ring to it (shopping recommendations are off-topic).
Answer: Your question is very broad but a 16x2 I2C display is probably what you are looking for. It only takes four pins because it's I2C and you can fit 32 characters on it which is enough for most small applications. You can get bigger sizes also.

There are libaries for python and C to drive these. Not to mention they are very cheap.

A simple display for Raspberry Pi 2 B+


IV transmission from Transmitter to Receiver side in CTR mode for every call

Question: I am using block cipher mode (CTR Mode) for the transmission of voice data. Need to know, how can I transfer the same IV at the decryption side (for every call) as the IV for the same packets on encryption and decryption sides must be the same.
Answer: If you encrypted your data as $c = \mathrm{CTR}_{IV}(m)$ you can send the value $IV || c$ (where $||$ is concatenation) to the decryption side. That side then parses the value it received into $IV$ and $c$ and computes $m = \mathrm{CTR}_{IV}(c)$. No need to keep the $IV$ secret.
Comment: Thanks for your valuable comment.
What I got till now is: IV = Nonce + Counter in CTR mode and here the Nonce will remain fixed and the counter will increase linearly for every packet. (We can say Nonce = 64bits and Counter = 64bits)
So, I need to transmit the IV just once, not for every packet. Right??
Also, Can I transmit the IV as the first packet without concatenating with the ciphertext? Because I am using it for voice call so the data rate may also cause an issue if I concatenate.
Comment: How you implement synchronization is up to you. What you propose makes sense, establish the nonce before you start sending data, and increment the counter for each packet you receive (assuming each packet is one block of ciphertext). Just remember, never encrypt two pieces of data with the same key and IV.
Comment: Please mention if I am wrong anywhere!
The key would remain same for the whole system (i.e. for a complete call) and the IV will change for every block with the help of counter. Is it enough?
For synchronization purpose, if I detect the first IV correctly then the remaining would be just incrementing linearly.