Who generates the mathematical problem for miners?

Question: In POW miners solve an problem for successfully mining a block, who provide the question to the miners ?, does all miners work on same problem ?, and how the miners verify the answer ?, if the problem is generated by the client(geth) then isn't it a vulnerable ?, you could tamper the problem complexity.
Answer: The problem is always the same, only the inputs change.
The problem is always "given an input X, try to find a hash value with a nonce which has a smaller integer value than Y". The input X is formed from the previous block's hash and from transactions in the current block. It's very difficult to find the correct nonce value which produces the desired result, but it's very easy to verify the result once it's found.
And there lies the strength of the Proof of Work: difficult to find the right value but very easy to verify the result once a correct nonce has been found. Therefore everyone can easily verify that the nonce someone claims to be the result is actually a correct result.
You can't tamper with the system as the input is always known for everyone and the problem is always the same.

Here is some general info about Proof of Work: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work
And here , here an explanation for spefically Ethereum: https://www.asynclabs.co/blog/proof-of-work-what-it-is-and-how-does-it-work/
And here is the actual algorithm implementation: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash
Answer: I can add that not all the problems in a given instant are the same for all miners in every situation: as a general rule the hash to found lower than a threshold given is to be formed from a nonce (i.e. a number that is changed by the miner until the solution is found), the given challenge (i.e. a number proposed to the miners community to synthetize the new run) AND a miner disntictive signature (f.i. the Ethereum address of the single miner).
In other words the number to be found under the given threshold is something like (just a description in order to understand):
numberToBeFound = sha3(uint nonce, bytes32 challenge, address _miner);

or something similar.
In this sense, given that the addresses of the various miner are different, the problem to solve is different for each miner at any time.
This can give better chances to miner A respect to miner B for a given challenge run, but this is absolutely random and then, in average this advantage do not exists.
FROM A COMMENT:
To include the address of the miner in the hash is needed to avoid the so called "man in the middle attack". If you propose your winning transaction, no one can copy it and propose it as it was of his property, even if his "copied winning transaction" is pumped by an enormous gas and is mined before than yours. This is the standard for minable token on Ethereum. You can find it explained here: github.com/xbdao/EIP918-reorganized/blob/master/README.md
HERE I REPORT FOR @Lauri Peltonen THE mint() FUNCTION TAKEN FROM 0xbitcoin token in etherscan. It should be clear the mitm standard mitigation technique I cited above (just watch first few lines of code)
function mint(uint256 nonce, bytes32 challenge_digest) public returns (bool success) {

        //the PoW must contain work that includes a recent ethereum block hash (challenge number) and the msg.sender's address to prevent MITM attacks
        bytes32 digest =  keccak256(challengeNumber, msg.sender, nonce );

        //the challenge digest must match the expected
        if (digest != challenge_digest) revert();

        //the digest must be smaller than the target
        if(uint256(digest) > miningTarget) revert();

        //only allow one reward for each challenge
         bytes32 solution = solutionForChallenge[challengeNumber];
         solutionForChallenge[challengeNumber] = digest;
         if(solution != 0x0) revert();  //prevent the same answer from awarding twice

        uint reward_amount = getMiningReward();

        balances[msg.sender] = balances[msg.sender].add(reward_amount);

        tokensMinted = tokensMinted.add(reward_amount);

        //Cannot mint more tokens than there are
        assert(tokensMinted <= maxSupplyForEra);

        //set readonly diagnostics data
        lastRewardTo = msg.sender;
        lastRewardAmount = reward_amount;
        lastRewardEthBlockNumber = block.number;

         _startNewMiningEpoch();

          Mint(msg.sender, reward_amount, epochCount, challengeNumber );
       return true;
    }

Comment: Do you have a source for this? I believe this information to be incorrect. Miner's address is not used as input for the hash - otherwise it might indeed give unfair advantage. Have a look at https://www.asynclabs.co/blog/proof-of-work-what-it-is-and-how-does-it-work/ for example.
Comment: Including the address of the miner in the hash is needed to avoid the so called "man in the middle attack". If you propose your winning transaction, no one can copy it and propose it as it was of his property, even if his "copied winning transaction" is pumped by an enormous gas and is mined before than yours. This is the standard for minable token on Ethereum. You can find it explained here: https://github.com/xbdao/EIP918-reorganized/blob/master/README.md
Comment: That has nothing to do with the Ethereum PoW algorithm. That's a suggestion for a token scheme and its status is 'Draft'. The original question was about Ethereum's PoW.
Comment: I do not think so: the question is absolutely general, being Ethereum pow a special case. In general you have the problem of the Man in the middle attack, where in the special case of Ethereum pow it can be (somehow) ignored.
Comment: Moreover you can easily find this schema in known minable tokens, one for all: 0xbitcoin
Comment: @LauriPeltonen you can read the code snippet above in order to understand


When Watney used the Ares IV MAV to ascend, he pulled 12 G's. But the crew used the MAV from Ares III to ascend, how come they didn't pass out?

Question: The crew used the same type of MAV at the beginning of the movie as Mark did at the end of the movie to ascend to Hermes. Did they all pull 12 g's leaving as well?  Did they pass out?
Comment: Obie's answer is correct. But technically, it's more economical for a rocket to accelerate faster because there's less time to be affected by gravity before being in orbit and for single burn escape trajectories you can take advantage of the Oberth effect. Sorry, I've had too much Kerbal Space Program.
Comment: that, and the time in atmo, where you loose a lot of energy to drag
Comment: In an Earth orbital launch, typically less than 1% of energy is lost to atmospheric drag; with Martian atmosphere being about 1% of the density of Earth's, atmospheric losses will be negligible. Gravity losses are larger than drag, but reduction of dry mass mostly just increases the delta-v potential of the craft via the rocket equation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
Answer: The MAV had been modified
Watney removed excess weight from the MAV in order to get it to go fast enough. In the first part of the movie, presumably it did not have to escape Mars's gravity:

It might be a wasted effort. The MAV isn't going to have much weight
  allowance when I launch. To intercept Hermes, it'll have to reach
  escape velocity, but it was only designed to get to orbit. The only
  way to get it going fast enough is to lose a lot of weight.
—The Martian

Also:

"Suffice it to say, " Venkat interrupted, "It would be very difficult
  and dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him
  trick out the rover. Also there would be MAV modifications."
"What's wrong with the MAV?" Mitch asked.
"It's designed to get to low Mars orbit, " Venkat explained. "But
  Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars
  gravity entirely to intercept."
"How?" Mitch asked.
"It'd have to lose weight... a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of
  people working on these problems if we decide to do this."
—The Martian

It is specifically mentioned that the modified MAV will experience severe forces:

"He might be in bad shape when I get him, " Beck said. "The
  stripped down MAV will get up to 12 g's during the launch. He could be
  unconscious and may even have internal bleeding."
—The Martian

The reason the Hermes could not enter orbit (as it had presumably done before) was due to fuel demands. From the film script:

MITCH: The problem is the intercept velocity. The Hermes cannot enter
  Mars orbit, or they'll never have enough fuel to make it home. The MAV
  is only designed to get to Low Mars Orbit. So in order for Mark to
  escape Mars' gravity entirely and intercept the Hermes...
Comment: Thank you all. This makes sense.  I need to read the book....  I just bought the book from Am*zon...


How does Dragon Ball Super's anime release before the manga?

Question: The anime is currently being released way faster than the manga according to my sources. In most cases of anime production (correct me if I'm wrong). But there is a mangaka (in this case toriyama-sensei) who creates content for the story called canon and releases that content via manga. Once a manga gets licensed and published by a major studio like Funimation or Bandai it becomes an anime, gets toys, games, t-shirts etc. But how is it that Dragon Ball Super is actually ahead of it's own manga?
Comment: Probably fillers :)
Comment: @KazRodgers well in the anime filler, its not. Hit clearly conveys that Gokus Kaioken was at least at 3-4 (or something between 2 and 5), but then corrects himself to say its greater before goku says 10. Of course in the manga, we know Goku doesn't use KaioKen at all to defeat Hit.
Comment: See I've considered that but so far the story has been the same save for how to goku vs hit battle ended. Now I don't know if kaioken + SSB is possible or if SSR -> SSB -> SSR is possible, or maybe both are. I dunno. Does this sort of thing happen often? It's the first series I've seen that releases before the manga that it comes from does.
Comment: could be the Mangaka has had input into the series. i think i remember reading somewhere that it was the case with all the Dragonball Movies
Comment: Was that also the case with the GT series?
Comment: @ardaozkal much of it is Fillers, but a lot is Canon. We saw the opponents in the tournament in the anime before they were fully revealed in the manga, and many of the fights went mostly the same way. Im sure Toriyama is working diligently with the Anime team to tell them about the canon events he plans on drawing in the manga, and the anime team mostly follows them (though goku has shown several times more strength in the anime than he should actually have in filler)
Comment: @Ryan this is another thing that drives me up a wall. Like was SSB kaiokenx10 just a mistranslation or something?
Answer: The reason is that this time around, the anime series is the original work, while the manga is the adaptation.
This is of course in contrast with the original Dragon Ball series, which were written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama and published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and only latter adapted into anime.
The precedence of the anime in the case of Dragon Ball Super has been widely reported, even though the first issue of the manga was published first (June 20, July 5 the first episode of the anime). Here are some sample sources (limited to 2 links for new user, I'll edit later)

Dragon Ball Super TV Anime Gets Manga Adaptation 2015-05-18
Dragon Ball Super getting companion manga 2015-05-19
DB Super getting ahead of manga? 2016-04

Also, the manga series is credited to Toyotarō, both story and art (see for example here), with Akira Toriyama credited variously with original concept/story, or as original creator. Wikipedia goes as far as to say "Written by Akira Toriyama / Illustrated by Toyotarō", but that seems to be an overstatement. The cover art of chapters 1 reads: "Manga by Toyotarō. Created by Toriyama Akira".
This means that it is unlikely that the manga has any particular input from Toriyama, other that the one that goes to the storyboard and the animation team.
Comment: Sorry I took so long to accept the answer. I swore I did it some time ago. :-(


Why is a parallel RLC circuit usually driven by a current source?

Question: Almost always when I see an example of a parallel RLC/LC circuit diagram online, the circuit is driven by a current source instead of a voltage source. On the other hand, the series RLC is always driven by a voltage source. Why is this? Why don't we drive parallel circuits with a voltage source?
Comment: I've seen plenty of examples of parallel circuits with voltage sources. I think what you're seeing is just a coincidence.
Comment: As @knzhou is saying we have all seen plenty of parallel circuits driven by a voltage source but then there is no really interesting question one can ask. IOW  it is not why  they are driven that way but rather what happens when driven that way. Since we know what the voltage is on each R,L or C terminal pair there is nothing to ask unlike if they driven by a current source. In the latter case you have to work your way through the problem.
Comment: @hyportnex That's a tempting answer, but not quite right. You could still ask "how much current comes from the voltage source as a function of frequency?"
Answer: In a parallel RLC, the voltage across each element is the same.
Therefore, if you hook a parallel RLC to to a voltage source, you might think the only things remaining to calculate are the currents through each element,
and it's not immediately obvious how those currents relate to the resonance properties of the circuit.
On the other hand if you use a current source and calculate the voltage across the LRC you easily see the resonance properties, e.g. the voltage peaks near the resonance [a].
Similarly, for a series circuit the thing that's constant in each element is the current.
Therefore, one answer here could be that pedagogical materials use a current source with parallel circuits because doing so provides a clear route to illustrating resonance phenomena.
That's not a very good answer though for two reasons.
First, you could put a voltage source on a parallel RLC resonator and calculate the total current coming from that voltage source.
If you do that, you'll see the resonance properties.
Second, this is all kind of unsatisfying because in real life your driver circuit is either like a current source or like a voltage source.
We can't just pretend the source is one way or another, can we?
Well actually, yes, we can because of the equivalence between current and voltage sources.
A current source $I_s$ in parallel with an impedance $Z$ is equivalent to a voltage source $V = I_s Z$ in series with an impedance $Z$.
With a parallel RLC, it's better to use the equivalent current source because it's easier to understand the effect that the source's own internal impedance has on the resonator.
For example, consider the case where the source impedance $Z$ is just a resistor $R$.
In the parallel representation we have the circuit shown below with an ideal current source connected to our RLC.
The source's resistor simply adds in parallel with the resonator's own resistor!
Therefore, computing e.g. the damping time for the combined circuit is particularly simple in this representation.

Parallel LRC connected to a current source

[a] Peak voltage is not the definition of resonance. See this other question.


Are Rows or Pulldowns/Pullups Better for a Wide V-shape Back

Question: I came to realize that my back routine is rather insufficient for my goals. I would like to improve it and put emphasis on wide v-shaped lats, but I am not sure if it is better to focus on wide grip pullups/pulldowns or heavy rows on a machine where you are firmly seated and you can support your chest on a cushioned surface(http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/articleimages/826/Seated-Row-Machine1.jpg).
My initial thoughts were that there would not be that much difference in lat activation, so I should just choose the more comfortable one, which was the row. I also liked the fact that it would be good for the rear delts and the traps. On top of that, I felt that the firm seated possition helps me do a good concentrated high intensity pull. The problem is, I never really feel the lats on the next day even if i go hard, whereas one set of body weight pullups (about 15 reps with about 85 Kg) is enough to really make me feel my lats on the day after. This makes me wonder if the pullups/pulldowns are not the better choice. Not because it hurts more the next day, but because with one set only, i can tell it taxed the lats a lot more than my whole row routine. Yet, oddly enough, I remember reading about some experiment with electrodes, which showed that rows tend to activate the lats more than pulldowns. This makes me quite confused. Whatever is better, i would also like to know why. I reckon the pulldowns/ups might have a bit more range of motion, and the direction of arm abduction might reduce trap and rear delt involvement which would likely put more load on the lats alone, but then again, it would seem that the pulldowns activate a lot more of the pecs.
Sorry for the long post.
Answer: I think you'll find over the long term, that one exercise is no better than the other at building the "V" shape you're after.  Having said that, I'd add that we all tend to have one or more exercises that tends to really work for a particular body part.  That's just part of genetics and being an individual.  I would stick with what works for you while cautioning you to make sure to add variety into your training.  It's far to easy to plateau doing the same movements day after day.  If you cycle your routine on a regular basis, you may find you'll make the gains you're after.


Pre-Vatican II Latin Prayer

Question: I'm new here, I was just wondering of someone knows what books were used for English catechesis prior to the 1960's in English speaking countries. I'd like to teach my CCD kids a few prayers in Latin but am not well versed in the language.  I've got Cassel's Latin Dictionary, but I find that to be a little Virgil heavy and Vatican lite, so there's a lot of words that I don't know how to properly pronounce and I'm not interested at mastering the language, just rote memorization for something fun to do on Wednesday nights.
Comment: Huh?  You're new here?  If you hacked @PeterTurner's account, you'll have some answering to do.  We like him.  Don't be messin' with out boy!  ;-)
Comment: I was just kidding, needed some pretense for asking what I know is technically a list question.
Answer: The standard book for catechesis before Vatican II in the United States was the Baltimore Catechism. It existed in several versions, some intended for younger children, some for older ones. The most complete version, intended for the teachers rather than the students, was a good reference for traditional Catholic doctrine in general.  (I'm not sure whether it underwent modifications in the wake of Vatican II.)
I don't know how old your CCD kids are, but if you want to teach them some Latin prayers, I'd suggest starting with the most basic ones.
The sign of the cross: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spriritus Sancti.
The Our Father: Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum.  Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.  Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.  Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.  Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo.
The Hail Mary: Ave Maria, gratia plena.  Dominus tecum.  Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesu.  Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
The Glory Be: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.
Comment: You should join the Latin Language group: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/75409/latin-language?referrer=KUZisSXBcP0trKcrYttSmg2
Comment: But the Baltimore Catechism wasn't a Latin primer was it?
Comment: @PeterTurner No, the Baltimore Catechism is about the faith, not about Latin. As far as I can see, the question is really two --- one about what texts were used for English catechesis, and one about teaching Latin prayers --- so I answered the two separately.  (As far as I know, "catechesis" means teaching the faith, not teaching a language.)
Comment: @Adam Thanks for the suggestion, but I am in no way qualified to discuss "the finer points of the Latin language" (as the proposed site says).  My knowledge of Latin is based on very little study (about half of a first-year Latin textbook) plus paying attention in a traditional Catholic church.
Comment: @AndreasBlass Sounds good. I thought your Latin was pretty decent imo, which is why I extended the invitation :)
Answer: Latin Prayers?
Most basic Latin prayers prior to the Second Vatican Council have not changed before, during or after the Council. The propers of the Mass are different because the Mass has undergone a substantial change. The same is true in the Roman Ritual.
This stated, you could teach CCD students to pray in Latin in a variety of ways. The traditional prayers in
Latin are the Credo, the Our Father, the Gloria amongst the most common. These prayers have not changed in Latin and are still taught in traditionally minded circles.
Nevertheless, I would like to recommend a way to teach your CCD pupils which may be somewhat fun given the the possibility of right circumstances.

CDs Feature Pope Praying Rosary in Latin

This could be a great way to learn how to pray the rosary with Pope Benedict XVI. To help the learn each person should be encouraged to be able to write out these prayers.
As a side note, this is a great way to say the rosary in a car while driving as the driver does not have to worry about counting the beads or using his fingers. It is a hands free way to pray the traditional rosary in Latin with the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
Each student could take the CD home to learn on a rotation basis, if you liked.

Pre-Vatican II Latin Prayer


Can I create server-side Java classes, OR mapping, and client-side AS classes from a single model description?

Question: I have a Java server application and a Flex client application. For my data model, I have typical objects, like User etc., that are basically the same in the database, the server-side Java code and the client-side AS code. I. e., the public fields of my AS and Java classes are named identically, and have the same types and values as the respective fields in the database table which has the same name as those classes.
For the Java classes and the DB tables to match, I can use any ORM. Are there any tools to have the AS classes (and, ideally, the matching Remoting boilerplate code) autogenerated from the Java ones as well? I had a short look at BlazeDS, but it didn't seem to have tools like that, at least I couldn't find anything about it.
Of course, in a perfect world, I'd describe my data items once and have the DDL, Java code and AS code all autogenerated. Does such a tool exist, and is it usable enough?
Oh yeah, and it would be great if the source format could be protobuf files...
Note: This seems to be the same question as this one. The answers there seem to indicate that at least there's no common tool that "everybody uses" or that has a reputation for high quality.
Answer: You can start here : http://www.graniteds.org/confluence/display/DOC/2.+Gas3+Code+Generator
Answer: The only tools that I know of are for generating AS classes from server code are the wizards built into Flex builder for autogenerating AS remote classes from ColdFusion CFC's for use with a ColdFusion based AMF service.
What may be useful to remember though is that once the serialized object has been received by Flex and an instance of mx.utils.ObjectProxy has been created for it (this relates to the flex RemoteObject class and AMF based services, but I imagine that a Protocol Buffer extension would follow the same pattern), the process of casting the proxy to an Actionscript class isn't all that complicated. As long as your Actionscript class has properties or accessors with names that match the properties on the serialized object, and an Remote Object alias that matches the type of the serialized object, then you can cast the object proxy to the remote class without having to do any extra work.
Like I said, I'm not aware of a tool that does what you want, but It wouldn't be too difficult to create a tool to read the type and public properties from your Java classes, or extract that same metadata from your protocol buffer files, and write some Actionscript code off that Metadata.  If you can't find a solution that fits your needs, you might consider writing an Ant task or a script or something to do it for you.  Thats what I would do anyway.


Are there any issues with sending money outside of the US?

Question: My girlfriend is an immigrant and for her birthday, I asked her what she wanted. She said she would like me to send a gift back to her home country for her parents instead of getting her something. I plan to send around $300-$400. Are there any laws I should know about?
Comment: People (mostly Latin Americans, Filipinos and Asian Indians) send out many tens of billions of dollars every year.  There are no US laws about "exporting" such a small sum of money.
Comment: There are US laws about "exporting" anything to a few specific locations--Iran, North Korea, Cuba...  but for most destinations, there should be no issue.
Answer: If you're sending that amount of cash (as opposed to, say, a gift worth $300), there are no laws, restrictions, or reporting requirements that will interfere with you getting the money out of the USA - as long as the cash isn't being sent as a part of a criminal activity (i.e. money laundering) or to a nation which the USA has heavy trade restrictions on (i.e Iran). Although, even on that last point, there are generally loopholes (you can get special permission to send money to family members in Iran).
However, you need to also check with the regulations of the country you're sending the money to. The amount you've listed is fairly small, but it makes sense to understand if there are restrictions or requirements for reporting money going in to the country you're sending it to, as well.


Why did this fish kill my Kissing Gouramis?

Question: I got two of these recently, and they killed my Kissing Gouramis. The shop owner said that they would be compatible.  I don't know what kind of fish it is, nor what would have caused them to kill my Kissing Gouramis
Comment: Not sure how to address this, but that shop owner gives bad advice. Goldfish are cold water fish, Kissing Gouramis are tropical. Their temperatures don't match. And as goldfish are herbivores, they are unlikely to have killed your Kissing Gouramis, unless you have seen them attack and eat them, that is.
Comment: identifying breeds are a little of topic here but what you have got is a shubunkin type of goldfish https://www.caringpets.org/how-to-take-care-of-a-goldfish/types/ .
Comment: We may have another discussion on identification on meta.
Comment: @Flummox They actually attacked them non stop. I have a heater on standby. What temperature do you recommend for these Goldfish?
Comment: all of the information you will need is here http://thegoldfishtank.com/ and if you do a search for goldfish here on this site you will find more information.
Comment: I have raised Koi for years ( more or less goldfish) and I never saw one attack anything but vegetables and floating food  .
Answer: A lot depends on how they were kept, as to what happened to your gourami. They are tropical, as prior commented while these shubunkin goldfish are cooler water fish, as also commented :) Most goldies prefer 72-75F for their waters, so many lower state residents don't have to use heaters that often unless they get into colder climate seasons. These guys are also considered pond fish and need quite a bit of room to grow-growing to the size of their tank is a bit of a myth, wherein their body will become stunted and their organs will continue to grow till they cannot handle that anymore. They are fun, funky little fish that are lots of fun. You can check out Solid Gold Aquatics on youtube, Jenny has some outstanding videos on their care and needs.
Sometimes, fish will start picking at the slime layer of other fish and this can lead to sickness and/or death. It's not completely unusual for goldfish to become curious or nibble at another fish, but it often varies per the species and even then.. they all have their own personalities lol.


What is the difference between Simulated Annealing and Monte-Carlo Simulations?

Question: What is the difference between Simulated Annealing and Monte-Carlo Simulations? Is Simulated Annealing a specific type of Monte-Carlo simulation, or are they completely separate techniques?
Answer: Monte Carlo simulation is a method for computing a function. Simulated annealing is an optimization heuristic. Other than that, the only common thread behind these two methods is the use of randomness.
In Monte Carlo simulation, we are aiming at computing some quantity $A$ by finding an easily samplable random variable $X$ whose expectation is $A$. We estimate $A$ by averaging many samples of $X$. More sophisticated versions of this are rejection sampling and MCMC.
Simulated annealing is a heuristic for optimizing an objective function $f$ over a domain $D$. We start with an arbitrary point $x \in D$, and then try making local changes which improve the value of $f$; this is local search. In simulated annealing, we also allow making local changes which worsen the value of $f$, with some small probability. The probability is smaller the more the change makes $f$ worse.
Comment: It depends on what you consider Monte Carlo. It's really up to you - there's no formal definition.
Answer: Simulated Annealing is closely related to Markov-Chain Montecarlo, and the Metropolis algorithm. The main difference is that MCMC aims to generate samples that respect and underlying distribution, while SA aims to find the maximum of a function. The similarity is that in both cases you want to visit the parts of the function that have the high values with higher frequency, but in SA you actually want to converge and in a way "get stuck" in a peak, while with MCMC you want sometimes to sample the other parts of the function too as you aim to visit every part of the function with a frequency proportional to the value. Algorithmically this is achieved in SA with the "annealing schedule" which shrinks the movement radius of the random walk over time in order to zero in a local maxima.


In the new Google Hangouts, is there any way to change the emoticon set?

Question: The new Google Hangouts replaced the normal Google Chat ASCII-ish emoticons with somewhat disturbed looking gumdrops. Is there any way to change this emoticon set, or even put it back to how it was before? Note that I just want to change the way I see it, I'm not trying to give myself new emoticons to use in chat.
Answer: In Firefox, add the following rules to your userContent.css
<code>@-moz-document domain(google.com) {
    .Pt span { opacity: 1 !important; width: auto !important; }
    .Pt div { display: none !important; }
}
</code>
This should remove the image and display the Unicode equivalent instead.
What you actually see is dependent on your font support.
If you want to replace them with a different set of images (and have a lot of patience), you can add the following rules instead, for each one you want to change.
<code>@-moz-document domain(google.com) {
    .e1f60a { background: url('<path to replacement>') !important; } /* :) */
}
</code>
The class for each one can be found by inspecting the DOM of the selection menu.
The old static sprite sheets are currently here: set 1 set 2 & 3 set 4 no longer available. Unfortunately the animated ones were done with JavaScript rather than a GIF, so can't be replicated easily.
Comment: Will this only happen in Google Hangouts, or will it trigger on emoticons in other places as well?
Comment: Edited to address that. The class that Google's using is pretty nondescript, so I should have done that to start with.
Comment: Is there a way to do this in Chrome? I really like the replacement option.
Comment: @SaintWacko http://superuser.com/q/52967/113004
Answer: You can try the Vulcan extension if you are using Google Chrome. Its purpose is to

Convert emoticons in Google Hangouts to their text equivalent.
Answer: For Chrome on a desktop, you can try this plugin to transform the default blobs into their text versions. It's not a perfect solution (try ;_; and ;( for example), but nonetheless an improvement IMO.


Can I force an application to use a specific font?

Question: How can I change the default font for a specific application in Windows 7?
I'm running an application which should have a specific font as its default... but I'm getting MS Sans Serif as the default.
Can this be changed? Thank you
Answer: If you don't mind that all applications use the font you want, you could follow these steps:
How to Change the Default Fonts in Windows 7
if this doesn't change it, then the font is hard-coded into the application and we probably can't fix it.


How to improve VATS weapon accuracy

Question: What are the different options to improve weapon accuracy. And is it in all the cases capped at 95%?
Comment: Kind of out of scope, but crits are 100% accuracy.
Comment: That's been my strat: build crits and bank crits.
Comment: @mmatthews That would mean that maxing the others doesn't matter at all. You better go for that 100% critial hit chance, do more overall dmg and have the 100% hitquote.
Answer: Your VATS accuracy with ranged weapons depends on:

Your character's Perception stat (which means it is improved indirectly by anything which raises Perception)
Weapon accuracy stat
Weapon range stat (higher means less accuracy loss at larger distances)
Any equipment which explicitly gives a bonus to VATS accuracy. You can sometimes find such items as random drops from rare enemies with a  ★ behind their name.
Any perks which give you an explicit bonus to VATS accuracy in certain situations:

Awareness 2 (5% accuracy)
Sniper 3 (25% accuracy for headshots with a non-automatic scoped rifle)
Penetrator 2 (no accuracy penalty for cover)
Concentrated Fire 1-3 (+10%/+15%/+20% accuracy for repeated shots)
Attack Dog 1 (accuracy bonus while your dog is holding the enemy)
Killshot (20% accuracy bonus for headshots) - this is a bonus perk obtained by maxing the relationship score with the companion character MacCready.

The 95% cap is a lie. Even though the UI never shows more than 95% accuracy, you can gain enough VATS accuracy that you never miss a shot.
Comment: @mmatthews comment brought me to a nice idea: One could completely ignore the accuracy and focusing solely on luck. Max is as high as possible and use all the gear you can find, to have a better hitchance and even more damage on top of that. Or it there a flaw in that idea?
Comment: @TrudleR That would be a new question.
Comment: Ok, I created one, thanks. :) https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/334650/is-leveling-vats-accurracy-actually-worth-it-compared-to-luck
Comment: MacCready Perk is really nice in VATS.

How to improve VATS weapon accuracy


Being asked to review a paper in conference one has submitted to

Question: As stated in the title (an IEEE conference). Does this create a conflict of interest antithetical to the reviewing process? Is it possible that accepting or refusing to review could jeopardise the chances of one's own paper being accepted?
Comment: As another example, I just finished reviewing papers for CogSci 2019, and while I didn't submit, I know a few people who both reviewed and submitted. As far as I know, it's pretty common at conferences this large, and the sheer numbers involved--both in terms of total submissions, and variety of areas--make it extremely unlikely for you accepting a paper you reviewed to have any effect on the chances of your own paper getting accepted.
Answer: No, there is no conflict. Your advice will be backed up or not by other reviewers. Likely the conference committee already knows that you are also a submitter.
But if you want double assurance of this, just send a note to the program chair that you have also submitted. If they see any issue, they will deal with it.
Just give an honest review as you would in any case. And trust that your paper will be accepted or not on its merits. Of course, there is quite a lot of competition, but that is always true.
Comment: I would add to this to say that colleagues have realised in the past, after submitting to a conference they were reviewing, that it was not against the rules but also "not the done thing", something you can't possibly know without speaking to the program chair! So getting in touch with the program chair should clear it all up.
Answer: I see no reason why it would be a conflict of interest. An analogous question would be if there is a conflict of interest in you reviewing papers in a journal you might publish in. Given that other conference attendees are in the same/similar field as you, and are interested in a good conference, those attendees would seem to be the ideal group to pull reviewers from.
In conferences where I've seen the sausage being made, accepting to review gains no advantage. Refusing any and all review requests will ultimately be viewed as rude, but will not disadvantage you in having your paper accepted. (Invitations for invited talks and membership on the conference committee may well be hindered, however.)
Comment: Journals aren't analogous because there's more scope for accepting "too many" papers today and dealing with the backlog tomorrow. Conferences are closer to a zero-sum game, where getting rid of competitors makes it more likely that your own paper will be accepted.
Comment: @DavidRicherby - still it is a pretty close analog, perhaps less so now than in the old days of mail delivery of printed copies of journals. A finite number of papers are published a year. A 'conference proceedings' issue of a journal could often dwarf the rest of the journal's output that year, at least in the old days. The point is, your fellow attendees (and paper submitters) are the same folks as are publishing in your favorite journal(s).
Comment: Sure but a journal can always accept your paper today and not actually print it for another three or four issues. It can also decide to print an extra issue to make up the backlog, of print fatter issues for a while. A conference doesn't have the option of saying "We're accepting your paper, but you can't present it until next year" and it has less scope for making the conference larger to accommodate more papers.
Comment: @DavidRicherby "Getting rid of competitors" is also a zero sum game, if most of the submitters are also reviewers. Or it might be better to describe it as a prisoner's dilemma situation - if everybody rejects the papers they review because they are competing with their own submission, *nothing* gets accepted.
Comment: @alephzero You're confusing games and strategies. The conference is the game; trashing other authors' papers is a strategy. Zero-sum is a property of games, not strategies. The key point is that most people don't use the strategy of trashing other people's papers. (Alas, everybody using it would be a Nash equilibrium)
Comment: @DavidRicherby - you seem to think that conferences are zero sum. Organizers have various ways of changing the number of talks that can be accepted (and the ratio of talks vs posters), and do so all the time. Just like the journals can do (except for the posters part, or course, but that is why letters journals proliferated).
Comment: @JonCuster I said "closer to zero-sum", not "zero-sum".
Answer: I've reviewed for many CS conferences and never seen one that has a conflict of interest policy saying that people who've submitted a paper can't review. I'm sure I've reviewed papers for conferences I've submitted to.  Yes, there is the slight conflict that a negative review for some other paper will likely mean a higher chance of yours being accepted, but it's going to look mighty suspicious if the reviews for a paper are "accept", "accept", "accept", "strong reject" and the "strong reject" just happens to come from a competitor.
I think I would decline to review a paper that was on a topic very close to my own submission because a positive review might be seen as "Oh, he's just hyping the subject so we think his own paper's awesome, too" and a negative review as "Oh, he's just trying to kill off the competition."  At the very least, I'd check that the PC member who asked me to review was aware that I'd submitted a paper on the same topic. And you can always check that the PC member is happy for you to review.
Answer: In conferences, even selective ones, the conflict of interest (as long as you do not review the paper of a past or current supervisor or supervised or obvious ally or enemy) is minimal. Also, good conferences concentrate the main experts on the field, so it would be very difficult to run it if they would perceive their reviews as conflict of interest.
This is quite different from reviewing for project proposals programs to which you submitted yourself. In these typically the total budget is very restrictive, and you are effectively placed in immediate antagonistic relation with all other submitters. Or else, if you end up being honest and recommend someone else's proposal in such a setting, if your own proposal ends up being rejected, you will keep asking yourself whether it was not your own recommendation of a competitor's that killed it. Or if you reject theirs, it is never clear how objective your judgement was.
And yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, it does occur that people are expressly and emphatically asked to review for calls to which they themselves submitted (e.g. because expertise is so scarce).
Answer: On the contrary, the IEEE conferences I am involved with (robotics and controls), explicitly expect authors to provide 2-3 reviews per paper submitted.
Reviews are not being submitted in a vacuum -- each paper gets multiple reviews, mediated by layers of editorial oversight. The downside risk of trying to game the system by submitting unwarranted bad reviews (losing the respect of senior members of your research community) far outweighs the minuscule potential benefits (the tiny chance that your paper is on the dividing edge of a hard quota line, such that bumping one other paper down bumps you over the line [if such a ranking/quota even exists], and that your bad review of an otherwise decent paper will tip the balance enough on it to bump it down when combined with the other reviews).
Answer: Assuming the papers are part of a blind peer-review process, I've never seen an example of this cited as a conflict of interest. Doesn't mean it isn't a potential conflict; I haven't come across this as such.
What would the conflict be in this regard? Are you worried about providing accurate feedback on papers? Usually, as a reviewer, there's a system in place whereby you're not just saying "yes" or "no" without giving written feedback.
Comment: The conflict is that the asker can increase the chance of their own paper being accepted to the converence by giving a bad review to somebody else's paper.


How do you prevent Meta (alt) in MS Windows 8 from opening the Windows start menu

Question: Trying to use Emacs in MS Windows (operating system), which I acknowledge is not ideal. However, whenever I attempt to use the Meta key the tiled start menu appears serves as a disruption and makes Emacs unusable. Is there a way of either disabling this feature or re-assigning the key?
Comment: Odd. For me the Windows key brings up that menu, Alt does not.
Comment: This question appears to be about Windows rather than Emacs per se.
Comment: @Dan There are solutions to the problem from both the windows side and the emacs side. Just because a problem involves interacting with another piece of software doesn't make the question off-topic. If that were the case, the entire site would be doomed.
Answer: With emacs -Q (no init file), the Meta key should work normally on MS Windows - no problem.
However, I think what you are referring to is the fact that Windows grabs certain Alt (hence Meta) keys for its own use, so that Emacs never sees them.
There is an Emacs function, w32-register-hot-key, that you can use, to take care of this - you just "register" whatever key bindings you like as being for Emacs, not Windows.
For example, this makes Windows pass M-tab and M-S-tab to Emacs:
(when (fboundp 'w32-register-hot-key)
  (w32-register-hot-key [M-tab])
  (w32-register-hot-key [M-S-tab]))

However, for 64-bit Windows 7 at least, this option no longer has any effect.
Answer: This is unusual behavior. Normally the Windows key brings up the start menu, and Alt on its own does nothing. Nevertheless, if you find you need to rebind your keys, you can do so using the free program SharpKeys. Using registry keys it can rebind any key on your keyboard.
You may just want to figure out what program is causing the Alt key to behave this way.


Why do some core functions get wp_ while others do not? What's the rule?

Question: Is there some guideline or rationale behind why some WP code functions are prefixed with wp_ ? eg: wp_insert_post() vs. update_post_meta()
Answer: This makes not that impressive answer, but - none.
get_ is suffix usually means function returns something, the_ that function echoes something.
wp_ doesn't carry technical meaning and inconsistency in naming is from many developers participating and lack of movement to unify (moving forward is considered more important than major cleanups of older stuff to make it neat).
Comment: I (somewhat) understand the reasoning for not remedying the current situation; however, I am puzzled by the lack of defining some point in time from which, henceforth, a defined function nomenclature would be enforced. Wishful thinking, I suppose.
Comment: Thanks Rarst. Otto confirmed it. Sigh. I was hoping... I'm with Chip!
Answer: Wordpress was and is written by a lot of different people. Patches are discussed inside wordpress trac and whoever submits or assigns to a trac ticket can post patches. If the patch gets accepted and moved into core of an upcoming version it's simply in there. So sometimes functions, vars, etc. gets the prefix while other times they don't. It relies on the participating developers.
Answer: The wp_ prefix is usually added to avoid naming conflicts with:

native PHP functions, such as get_current_user()
older/deprecated WP functions, such as get_archives()
third-party libraries?
Answer: I always assumed the distinction was that - beyond the basic template tags, which generally just have the simplest descriptive name possible:

functions that begin with wp_ are generally high-level public API functions, which are pretty much guaranteed to always be around and retain forwards-compatability.
functions without that prefix are internals, stuff you shouldn't muck around with unless you know what you're doing.

I don't know if this was ever intentional, though. And like the other two answers have said, it doesn't hold up consistently. Your example of update_post_meta is a perfect example of something that seems like it should should have a wp_ prefix if my classification held true. But there's enough deep legacy code in WordPress to throw off any attempt at making sense of any naming convention.
Comment: For the record the really internal functions start with underscore alone `_*` But there aren't that many of those and in practice they aren't that absolutely internal-only either.
Comment: haha. I actually thought it was exactly the opposite - that wp_ functions were more of the internal (you-can-use-it-but-it's-really-internal) variety while the others were more public. Sad as it sounds though, maybe Rarst et al. are right and there is no rationale.


What does Toadette do in Mario Run?

Question: I've just finished finally unlocking Toadette -- but while Mario specifies growing with Mushrooms, Luigi jumps higher, Princess does a floaty jump, Toad runs faster, and Yoshi does a flutter jump...I have no clue what Toadette's ability is.  Any help would be appreciated.
Answer:
She plays identically to Mario, but unlike Mario, she gets defeated in one hit. Her special ability is converting some Toads to the player's side before the final tally in Toad Rally.

Source: Mario Wiki
Comment: I just tested this. Her ability is to steal a few toads from your opposition during the tally, possibly swaying the score to your favour. Your still get the same amount of toads, but you get a boost to your score to increase your chances of winning.
Comment: For future reference: this isn't true anymore. All characters now have a small form, so Toadette no longer dies in a single hit.

What does Toadette do in Mario Run?


Using both .gcode and .gbr files in a hybrid 3D printer + circuit etching machine? (RepRap 1.4 with Marlin firmware)

Question: I'm making a hybrid 3D printer and circuit etching (CNC milling) machine that can both 3D print and etch prototype circuit boards. I'll be using Marlin firmware with an Arduino Mega & RepRap 1.4 board. It will have a 3D printer head and a milling head side by side. I'd like to have it be able to read both .gbr (for circuit etching) and .gcode (for 3D printing) files. How should I configure Marlin to read both types?
Comment: You cannot do that. .gbr files are for photo plotters.
Answer: You can use both .gcode and .gbr files one one machine. We do it where I work.
However, when we make prototype circuit boards, we don't print them; we acquire circuit board blanks, and then we either:

Use a diode laser to burn off the top layer of garolite for isolation traces, then do a chemical dip to remove that copper, then another laser burn to expose pads for surface mount components; or
Use a spindle tool to remove the top layer of garolite where needed for pads, as well as mill through the copper layer for isolation traces.

We have not found a printable material that has the conductivity we want in a circuit board.
Source: I work for Hyrel 3D

Note: we don't use Marlin on Arduino, we use in-house firmware on STM32F429 boards.
Comment: Would that mean I can load .gbr files just like I would .gcode files with no extra configuring? Also, I'm planning to just use a spindle, no laser or chemicals.
Comment: What does your software and firmware work with? Our software and firmware can do this. [See this image](http://hyrel3d.net/images/repetrel/rep_obj_menu.png) (also added to answer). We also make our own solder paste masks (from aluminum cans), and use our pick-and-place attachment to position surface-mount components, then put them in our reflow oven to make prototypes and first runs, before sending them out for mass production.
Comment: I'm using the Marlin firmware for my machine and I'm not sure it can use .gbr files. My machine is just supposed to etch prototype boards and 3D print.
Comment: As noted above, we don't use Marlin on Arduino. We use in-house firmware on STM32F429 boards. I don't know what your setup is capable of, but it does not seem like a very big stretch to turn a different motor during "extrusion" moves.
Comment: I asked about using Marlin on Arduino so your answer didn't really answer my question.
Comment: That's true - so please do not accept it. But other users may see your title, which is more general (and which this does answer), and find this answer useful to them.
Answer: Well, I'm Using pronterface to send the gcode to print the traces of my PCB with an ink pen (sharpie); since the parameter in the Marlin-Rep rap1.4 is configured to fast print, So I can easily send the code just setting the origin or Zero to print on any area of the printer.
To set the new Zero just use the code G92, for example we need to print in the middle of the printer, so just move the spindle to that position and set G92 X0 Y0, then andjust the Z height then set G92 Z0. for your milling add a Z secure travel to avoid collide with the surface and or mechanical clamps
This video shows a PCB print in the 3Dprinter, so for the milling process will be the same. The video shows also the process making the holes on the CNC; I didn't do in the 3d printer because in that time I hadn't a dremel support.
Also Tech2C teach how you can configure the whole printer, just follow this link
So, be happy milling in your 3d printer

Note: for gbrl files I haven't tested but you can try to read and send
  your code thru this program (pronterface) probably you cand get some
  messages like "uknown code" just like gcode sender does while trying
  to send codes for laser etching (old versions).


Cracks in paint on aluminum frame

Question: I noticed some small cracks in the paint on my aluminum frame bike. The cracks are clustered around the rear brake boss, and only on one side (NDS). The bike is from 2011 and has been ridden over 10,000 km. Just wondering if it's just cosmetic or something I should be worried about.
Comment: It wouldn't surprise me if there turned out to be an element of chemical contamination. This can weaken paint and make it brittle
Comment: Scratch one of the cracks with a fingernail and see whether the paint flakes away. Looks like a really badly done over painting.
Answer: I believe the cracks are just in the paint, not the alloy.
Only the white paint is cracked, not the black, the cracks are evenly spaced and run in all directions rather than the single direction a stress crack would follow.
Comment: Whilst I agree its almost certainly just a paint issue, i'd probably be sanding that back to take a close look to be safe.
Comment: Concur - it looks like the white paint is not as forgiving as the black.  White appears to be  layered on top of the black, so perhaps a case of bad preparation between coats or maybe not enough time was left between coats.   Reinforcing this is that its only on one side of the bike.   This spot by the brake boss is going to have the most flex on the whole seat stay.  Fixes - ignore it, or prep it/mask and paint some enamel white on with a small brush.  Or some modern reflective paint could be cool.
Comment: I'd not ignore it - recently I've found a crack on my fork which I thought was a paint issue. So maybe scratching those paint cracks and looking what is underneath can be a better idea
Answer: I would at the very least check the inside of the brake boss attachment for cracks. The way the paint is cracking, it appears as if there is some large-scale movement of the aluminum, which could be caused by a crack on the inside. And if that is the case, you need to stop riding this bike immediately!

Background
Brakes put a lot of stress on the structure of the frame, especially cantilever- or V-brakes. They push the seat stays apart, and this pushing force is not aligned with the center of the seat stays. Rather, they produce quite some torque along each seat stay, which is transmitted at the attachment of the boss itself. Thus, the welding of the bosses and the chain stays, as well as the aluminum parts directly next to those weldings, are prime candidates for cracks. And you definitely do not want your seat stays to fail you!
Also, the fact that only one side is afflicted is a huge red flag. If the issue was just with the paint, you'd expect the symptoms to be all over the place, or at least symmetric. Not only at one side where there is a lot of structural stress.
Comment: While there's no way realistic way to tell without removing the paint and examining the actual frame, I don't think those cracks in the paint are caused by flexing of the brake boss.  Note the same crack pattern over the very thick and quite inflexible weld bead.  Were that cracking caused by flexing, I'd think the thinner, more flexible areas would be cracked while the paint over the weld bead wouldn't be.  While it *could* be a crack on the inside of the boss as you say, and I'd definitely check for that, to me it just looks like a bad paint job or bad paint prep in that area.
Comment: @AndrewHenle I sincerely hope you are right.

Cracks in paint on aluminum frame


Migrating custom web parts from SP 2010 to Sharepoint online

Question: I am working on a project where I have to migrate a website from Sharepoint 2010 to sharepoint online. I ran the tool to migrate the site but the source site had a custom webpart which was not migrated by the tool. How can I migrate the custom webpart to sharepoint online?
Answer: I suggest you could re-create the custom web part as SharePoint 2013 web part, then import the custom web part into SharePoint online. Otherwise, in SharePoint online, the custom web part cannot work if you export from SharePoint 2010 and import to SharePoint online directly.
Or you could re-create the custom web part for SharePoint online directly.
More reference:
Migrating from SharePoint 2010 to O365 in the Real World.
Answer: As mentioned on here sandboxed or form solutions ( aka wsp) solutions are depreciated on SharePoint Online. So we have to create our features in SharePoint Add-In framework.


Why children born in Moola, Ashlesya, Jyeshta and Maga Nakshtras (stars) are considered inauspicious?

Question: There is a saying that a child born in Moola, Ashlesya, Jyeshta, Maga is inauspicious. Is this properly explained in any religious books? This question is pursuant to astrology.
Comment: Hanuman is moola nakshatra, Lakshmana is Ashlesya… and so on.. the statement is like adding insult to devatha.. Child is form of god.. don't bring in your inauspicious thought and paint the new born..
Answer: What you read/heard is only the partial truth.There are two more nakshtras which are considered equally inauspicious as per the "Gandamoola" concept viz-Aswini and Revati.
There are 27 nakshtras in all in Jyotish.Of them  6 nakshtras, 3 ruled by Ketu(viz-Aswini,Magha & Mula) & 3 ruled by Budha(viz-Revati,Ashlesa &Jyestha) are called "Gandamoola nakshtras".Birth in them are considered inauspicious.Infact,not only Moon,other Grahas are also supposed to give malefic results if placed in the "Gandantas".

Gandanta is the junction points in the zodiac that a particularly
  connected with times of soul growth. This is the position of the
  zodiac where the where the solar and lunar Zodiac meet. These points
  are at the junctions of Pisces (Revati)- Aries (Ashwini), Cancer
  (Ashesha)- Leo (Magha), Scorpio (Jyeshta)- Sagittarius (Mula). They
  are especially powerful in giving Karmic effects.

What is a Gandamool Nakshatra?

There are 27 Nakshatras in Vedic Astrology; in the modern era most of
  the astrologers count 28 Nakshatras including Abhijit Nakshatra. Those
  Nakshatras which are ruled by Ketu and Mercury are known as Gandmool
  Nakshatra. These are basically 6 nakshatras namely Ashwini, Ashlesha,
  Magha, Jyestha, Moola and Revati.

One of the authentic Jyotisha text, The Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra ,mentions that birth in these nakshtras are considered inauspicious.

1-4. The Venerable Sage said. O Maitreya! Now I will describe to you
  the circumstances, in which the births are inauspicious in spite of
  Lagn and the Grahas being well disposed. Although Lagn may be well
  disposed, births will be inauspicious, if they take place on Amavasya
  (last day of the Krishna Paksha), on Chaturdasi (14th Tithi), in
  Krishna Paksha (dark half of the month), in Bhadra Karan, in the
  Nakshatr of the brother, in the Nakshatras of father and mother, at
  the time of entry of Surya in a Rashi, the time of Pata, at the time
  of solar and lunar eclipses, at the time of Vyati Pata, in Gandantas
  of all the three kinds, in Yamaghant, Tithikshaya, in Dagdha Yog etc.

Remedies include chanting the Janma Nakshatra mantras etc.
Comment: I think you should include the effects of birth in such nakshatra as I believe that's what the OP wants to know, in the current form, your answer looks like it is an extension of question.
Comment: I don't think so.... The Q asks why inauspicious? My answer "because they are called Gandamoola... " It is not at all clear to me that OP knows abt the concept of Gandamoola, Ganadanta etc... @ChinmaySarupria
Answer: There is an Alwar born in one of this nakshatra.
Place   Thirumandangudi
Month   Maargazhi
Star    Kettai (Jyeshta)
Similarly we can find more examples of spiritual Giants born in these nakshatras.
So inauspicious has no meaning for devotees of God. We can always strive to make the children devoted to Vasudeva and that will take care of all such concerns if there are any.
Answer: I do not know where you heard this saying but it is far from true.
The birth star is the star-group the Moon occupies at the time of the birth.
Ashlesha and Jyeshtha are rules by Budha (Mercury). Budha is friendly to Chandra (Moon), although their nature are quite different. Budha is the intellect and Chandra is the emotion. Hence, there may be some conflict at times.
Also, Mula and Magha are ruled by Ketu. Now, one might argue that Ketu is a spiritual planet and may give hardship in the material plane. Although, in that case, same logic should be applied to Rahu or Shani.
To sum it up, even if there is any inauspicious effect at all, it is a small part of a very big picture. When looking at all the dimensions of a chart, these combinations lose their relative value.
Comment: If you have further questions on astrology, you can ask them here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/101512/vedic-astrology?referrer=WNGAY2D0NY672-MEPBo36A2
Comment: @Amit--It is given in the Kudumba Jodidam book itself. Even I am a Mula born--undergoing suffering from lifetime till date. Career path was disabled. Working in wrong place. Jyeshta, Aailya and Maga also I have friends and relatives. Not upto the mark. After reading in the book and seeing practically I put the question. Your calculation is based on astrology which is mathematical calculation. Benefits or problems cannot be told by any astrologer.
Comment: @ParthasarathyRaghavan There are millions of people with these birth stars, some would be miserable, many would be happy, so thats wrong logic. Focus on the strongest planets in your chart.
Comment: what u say is true. But the weaker planets also cause turmoil.
Comment: @ParthasarathyRaghavan That is true. As I said, only with the help of the stronger planets can you deal with the weaker ones.
Comment: @Amit--Yes. At times the weaker planets viz  Saturn, Mars can beat stronger planets also by their placement position itself.


css and javascript aggregation. Can I still edit files?

Question: Am developing a site using drupal 7.15
I am having problems with displaying a ddblock in internet explorer and I think it may be due to too many css files.
If I aggregate them can I continue to edit them? Also, can I still use Firebug to view my css?
All the posts I read seem to refer to setting aggregation when you decide to "go live"
Sorry to ask such an elementary question.
Answer: You can still edit the original files as much as you like, but you won't see the changes reflected in the front end until you clear Drupal's caches.
You can absolutely still use Firebug to inspect your CSS, but keep in mind that the files have been aggregated, so you won't be able to pinpoint the original file and line that a rule comes from.
That's pretty much why it's recommended to keep aggregation off during development, unless of course you're testing the aggregation itself.
Comment: ie does have that problem (the limit's 31 if I remember rightly), but Drupal 7 avoids it when aggregation is turned off by using `@import` statements (which the limit doesn't apply to)
Comment: Thanks, Clive. I am a bit stuck because I cannot get ddblock to show in ie and I understand ie has a problem with more than a small number of stylesheets.
Comment: Thanks Clive. Have noticed that the @import statements are in the source of the page and wondered what they were!  Will have to ask around for a solution to the ddblock problem.
Comment: @Brian O'Gorman Would you mind accepting his answer? See [here](http://stackoverflow.com/help/someone-answers) for more details.


Address Prefix Strip Using Python

Question: I have a field of data with a lot of prefixes that are difficult to remove. They involve two letters and up to three numbers that are not separated from the Street Number with a space. For instance, W238N17W Sutter Street. The address is 17 W Sutter Street. I'd like to be able to strip the postal prefix from all of the addresses in the entire field. The field has more than 150,000 addresses and they are obviously not all the same, the prefixes are not even the same length, but they all contain a letter at the start and end of the prefix.
Comment: What GIS software are you using?  What have you tried?
Answer: You could use regular expressions in field calculator.  I believe this would work given your description.
Expression:
update_address(!FIELD_NAME!)

Code Block:
import re

def update_street(address):

    return re.sub(r'[A-Z]\d{1,3}[A-Z]', "", address)

I tested it on the following data example and it works fine:
Before running field calculator (note the test data has capital letter then 1 to 3 digits followed by capital letter):

Run Field Calculator as shown below:

Output after running field calculator:
Comment: @AvramKlein No it does not only work with points it works with any field in any table (the script has nothing to do with the geometry of the feature class).  Please be more descriptive with the error or results you are getting.
Comment: Thanks for you help. I plugged these terms into the field calculator and didn't get any result. I got the error, "There was a failure during processing, check the Geoprocessing Results window for details." Can you recomend any additional step by step instructions? The data I have looks like this, N87W24887 N LISBON RD LISBON WI 53089       I would like the data look like this, 24887 N LISBON RD LISBON WI 53089
Comment: @AvramKlein I have tested and updated my answer with pictures to help.  This is working for me as I originally described.  I am not very good at writing code within posts so it might not have cut and pasted properly.  Hopefully this helps.
Comment: Thank you so much for your help. I really enjoyed readying this. My file is in Polygon Shape format. I don't have the ArcMap license necessary to convert my address polygons to points. Does the above Python script only work with points? I entered the python script into the field calculator and didn't get result from my address field.

Address Prefix Strip Using Python


Arduino Mega read data from USB

Question: I´m completely new to the arduino and not used to work with it. Due to an project I need to know the best way to transfer Data to my Arduino Mega. The transferred file will be an sliced 3D object. Is it possible to use the built in USB port to read from a stick? Or do I have to use a PC to transfer my data?
Please help me to answer this question since I have no clue how to manage to get the sliced file to my Arduino.
Comment: How big is your sliced 3D object? Are you sure, that it will fit on an Arduino Mega?
Comment: Accessing a USB stick is not directly possible and not cost effective to add to this platform (vs changing it for a cheaper one that can do so natively), but you can access an SD card, which you could of course have initialized on a PC via a USB adapter.
Comment: It would be easier to use a Raspberry Pi.  They support USB natively, so can read a memory stick or directly from a serial port.
Answer: The Arduino Mega doesn't support USB-host, so you can't connect a USB stick directly.
The easiest way is to connect it to a computer, and send the data over the serial connection.
Comment: And probably only a little bit of it at a time... for example Arduino-based 3d printers "drip feed" the data only a bit in advance of when it is being used, as a many-megabytes part file would not fit in the ATmega at once.  Of course this approach only works for tasks where the can be accessed with a fairly local view - anything that requires looking at separated parts of the data at once (like the conversion of a 3d model to toolpaths) has to be done beforehand on a computer with enough memory.
Comment: Since you're basically re-inventing the equivalent of a 3d printer firmware, you should probably start by thoroughly familiarizing yourself with how the open source ones work.   There are likely other gcode interpreters you can find as well.  To put it in historical terms, you'll be tunneling a serial channel through a USB port and more or less using it to emulate a punched tape...
Comment: Thank you both for your ideas on the problem. @ChrisStratton the goal will be to create the toolpath on a machine with enough memory and to send the result to the Arduino. The Arduino then will be used just to control 3 motors to follow the created path and to control the printhead. Is it possible to send the toolpath via the USB port or do I have to establish some kind of other connection?
Comment: So you just need to check that arduino serial is good enough-fastest it budges data from pc is 250000 baud -which is just over 30kb a second. To put the terminology in historical terms baud refers to the number of different symbols and was used with telegrams in the 19 century.Bit rate concerns two symbols.Thats why its 30kb.

Arduino Mega read data from USB


Forgot Password with Ajax

Question: Is there anyway to implement Forgot Password with Ajax. I tried the Authenticate
but it doesn't working properly with EE v2.7+. Could anyone please help me.
Answer: You could probably load in http://ee-zoo.com/docs/visitor/examples/forgot_password.html dynamically with Ajax into another template with relative ease.
Perhaps you could adjust http://ee-zoo.com/docs/visitor/examples/login_ajax.html and call it in at an appropriate time.
If that's not quite right for you, could you clarify what you're after with the ajax implementation? It's a little ambiguous at the mo.
Comment: Thanks for your kind response. Is there any other way except Zoo Visitor. Please let me know.

Forgot Password with Ajax


How to replace this recessed light bulb

Question: I've been struggling with this light bulb for hours.
I tried to un-screw it to the left or right but it didn't rotate at all.
Please help me.
Answer: Some types of compact fluorescent (PLL, PLT) have a push-in fitting. Try pulling straight out.

Photo by ikiwaner, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

P.S. While you are working on that, you really ought to fix that loose earth/ground connection with a bolt, nut, washer and maybe a crimp-on ring-connector. Or something similar. —
P.P.S. broken compact fluorescents may need special cleanup
Comment: It looks like there may be a push in release tab at 1:30 o'clock on the base. Try pushing that tab in and pulling the base out. Use a garden glove to protect your hand

How to replace this recessed light bulb


Converting coordinates: Feet to Degrees-Minutes-Seconds

Question: I have a point shapefile and I want to get the coordinates for each point in Degrees-Minutes-Seconds format. When I use Add XY Coordinates (Data Management) it gives me the coordinates in Feet format. Any idea/ thought?
Answer: From the online help for Add XY Coordinates:

If the Input Features are in a geographic coordinate system, POINT_X and POINT_Y represent the longitude and latitude,
  respectively.
If an ArcMap layer is selected as input, the x,y coordinates are based on the input's coordinate system, not that of the data frame.

Check either the dataset that you are using as input, either direct or via a layer, and I expect that you will find it is in a Projected Coordinate System.
If you do not want to Project your data, try using Calculate Geometry instead.
Answer: Either your data is projected, or your data frame is projecting on-the-fly...(or both).
Can you verify the input dataset's projection / datum (layer properties > source)?

If it is using some State Plane system, you may want to make a copy in a geographic projection (e.g. WGS 1984).
You can also change the data frame properties to project on-the-fly coordinate system to WGS 84 (geographic/world).
If you need to reproject, use the Data Management / Projections & Transformations / Project Tool with the appropriate datum transformation based on your input points.
Answer: Borrowing from PolyGeo..
(Optional to add new fields or change existing x, y fields)
Add two new fields: Lat and Long and make them double precision.
Open the Field Calculator by right clicking on the field (ignore warning message).
For "Lat" field use "y" field.
For "Long" field use "x" field.
Right click on Lat field and select Calculate Geometry (ignore message).
For "Y Coordinate of Point" change units to Decimal Degrees.
Right click on Long field and select Calculate Geometry (ignore message).
For "X Coordinate of Point" change units to Decimal Degrees.
Comment: The OP asked for Degrees Minutes Seconds, this answer was for Decimal Degrees.


The operation cannot be started by an account that uses SQL Server Authentication. SSIS Package

Question: I have a remote access in SSMS, when I try to execute an SSIS package I get, the operation can not be started by an account that uses SQL Server Authentication

How to fixed it?
Note: I can not use Windows Authentication remotely.
Comment: On that session in SSMS, you will need to login using Windows Authentication. You can read more [in the documentation](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/integration-services/packages/execute-package-utility-dtexecui-ui-reference).
Comment: I can not use Windows Authentication remotely.
Answer: You cannot use a SQL Account to run an SSIS package in the Integration Services Catalog. There is logic within the CLR methods that are used to run the SSIS packages that reject non-windows authentication (as you have discovered).
As a consultant, I ran into issues where I'd use my corporate laptop plugged into a client's network. In that case, my account sdc\billinkc would not exist in the client domain. Instead, their servers would expect client\bfellows credentials to be presented. The work around is to use RunAs. Alternate reference
From my answer on deploying ispac to foreign domain...

I created a suite of batch files that launch every process I need. They take the form of

runas /netonly:client\bfellows "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe"

I have one for a command prompt (above), Visual Studio, SSMS, PowerShell, PowerShell ISE and some other specialty apps that need to work with their domain.
Using the runas approach, I've been able to deploy packages using all of the above methods (as well as deploying directly from a Visual Studio instance being run with foreign credentials).

You'd want to use ssms.exe and the correct install path to launch management studio and then SSIS packages would run.
Approach #2
If you don't have an account in the foreign domain and the only thing they are willing to do is create a sql login, then they will also need to

Create a Credential
Create a Proxy
Create a SQL Agent job that uses the proxy to run the SSIS package
Grant the sql login the rights to run the job

This will allow you to run an SSIS package in a manner that is allowed as well as present domain credentials to the required resources.
Comment: Can you elaborate on Approach#2.
Answer: For future Googlers, adding a Windows Authentication login as sysadmin and turning on "Impersonate Any Login" on the SQL Auth login (also sysadmin) as described in this StackOverflow answer allowed us to use "EXECUTE AS LOGIN = 'server\winuser'" and successfully execute the package via the SQL Auth account.
You just have to be sure you are connected to the SSISDB database when executing the commands.


Relationship between KS, AUROC, and Gini

Question: Common model validation statistics like the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (KS), AUROC, and Gini coefficient are all functionally related. However, my question has to do with proving how these are all related. I am curious if anyone can help me prove these relationships. I haven't been able to find anything online, but I am just genuinely interested how the proofs work. For example, I know Gini=2AUROC-1, but my best proof involves pointing at a graph. I am interested in formal proofs. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Comment: By KS, do you mean the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic? AUROC is probably the area under the ROC curve?
Comment: Seems like starting from Wikipedia and going through the original references would be a good place to start.
Answer: The Wikipedia entry for Receiver operating characteristic references this paper for the Gini=2AUROC-1 result: Hand, David J.; and Till, Robert J. (2001); A simple generalization of the area under the ROC curve for multiple class classification problems, Machine Learning, 45, 171–186.  But I'm afraid I don't have easy access to it to see how close it comes to what you want.
Comment: ... and it may be a useless result, as the Gini is usually applied to data that has two categorial labelings, while AUROC is applied to numerical ranking data + a binary label. They *may* **coincide *only* if your ranking is binary?** in which case it would not make much sense to use AUROC at all because it is a 3-point curve with only 2 degrees of freedom... (I have not checked that result, too much paper spam on Wikipedia these days.)
Answer: The result Gini=2*AUROC-1 is hard to prove because it is not necessarily true. The Wikipedia article on the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve gives the result as a definition of Gini, and the article by Hand and Till (cited by nealmcb) merely says that the graphic definition of Gini using the ROC curve leads to this formula.
The catch is that this definition of Gini is used in the machine-learning and engineering communities, but a different definition is used by economists and demographers (going back to Gini's original paper). The Wikipedia article on the Gini coefficient sets out this definition, based on the Lorenz curve.
A paper by Schechtman & Schechtman (2016) sets out the relationship between AUC and the original Gini definition. But to see that they cannot be exactly the same, suppose that the proportion of events is p and that we have a perfect classifier. The ROC curve then passes through the top-left corner and AUCROC is 1. However, the (flipped) Lorenz curve runs from (0,0) to (p,1) to (1,1) and the economists' Gini is 1-p/2, which is nearly but not exactly 1.
If events are rare, then the relationship Gini=2*AUROC-1 is nearly but not exactly true using Gini's original definition. The relationship is only exactly true if Gini is redefined to make it true.
Answer: According to the paper (Adeodato, P. J. L and Melo, S. B. 2016), there is a linear relationship between the Area under the KS curve (AUKS) and Area under the ROC curve (AUROC), namely:
$$ AUROC = 0.5 + AUKS $$
Proof of equivalnce is included in the paper.


Exchanging air in basement

Question: Live in nepa, have goodman 4 ton heat pump w/propane back up. Foam insulated about 1200 square feet that I want to heat. I am at the end and ready to put up the dividing wall.I have 2 returns and 3 exhausts, I'm going to add 2 more exhausts, I get plenty of push from the system now, my question is do I open the now closed returns year round to pull the air out and if so should I add another? I ran 8 inch metal to 6 and with the air on you can feel the cold air immediately cool off the shop even with 90 degrees out.
Comment: What do you mean "now closed returns", why are they closed?
Comment: I didn't want to open the basement return until my dividing wall was up
Comment: Diagramming with some sense of scale could be helpful, or I would suggest altering your question to indicate "advice" rather than a factual, informed decision.
Answer: The best systems have a return in every room that has a supply register, but a lot of systems work just fine with only a central return (usually located right at the furnace). To achieve the highest efficiency, you're going to have to do a heat load calculation, however it sounds like it's working fine.
A good system will have balancing dampers placed throughout the duct work, but you can also balance the system by e.g., half closing all of the registers upstairs, to force more air into the basement.
Comment: The system works fine in the upstairs, it's a center hall and the basement shop is the issue, if I open the basement register, will this remove the damp feel? I used closed cell foam as I can't seem to get it warm enough to work for long periods of time
Comment: @Jondog Cutting holes for more returns and adding supply registers (or opening those that exist) will help. A good system will have balancing dampers placed throughout the duct work, but you can also balance the system by half closing all of the registers upstairs, to force more air into the basement.
Answer: Beautiful & open or close whatever works. It's the only way if you're not going to have programmable motorized dampers, like most everyone doesn't...you can outdo the Jones' & not just try to keep up with them. But, you'll likely have to re-experiment for the cooling & heating seasons to figure out what works for each.
All returns can & should usually stay open & don't come as adjustable for that reason, they're just "grills" not "registers". You'd only add a return(s) if they're noticeably needed. If a room's damp as you discovered or cold instead of warm or vice versa a return is needed to suck out that offensive air & suck in good air for "conditioning" at the Air Conditioner...everyone's HVAC system.
Of course, typically in cooling you fully open top floor registers & mostly close bottom floor registers, heating is then just the reverse. Since, cold air drops & hot air rises. But, then you'll have to take it further for building entry points, picture windows, dog doors & daughters kissing boyfriends through a window.

Exchanging air in basement


Do Boots of Speed affect jumping distance?

Question: Do the boots of speed affect my jump distance? I'm not sure because it refers to increasing my walking speed, and not movement speed.
Answer: Essentially No

"Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a
number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at
least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When
you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half
that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the
jump costs a foot of movement." Page 182 of the PHB

So basically I interpret that as no matter how much movement you have you can only jump as far in feet as your strength score.
There are some exceptions though:

Second Story Work
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain
the ability to climb faster than normal; climbing no
longer costs you extra movement.
In addition, when you make a running jump, the
distance you cover increases by a number of feet equal
to your Dexterity modifier. Page 97 PHB

So at third level rogues who take the thief archetype can add their dex and their strength to the jump.

Step of the Wind
You can spend 1 ki point to take the Disengage or Dash
action as a bonus action on your turn, and your jump
distance is doubled for the turn. Page 78 of the PHB

so monks can make their jump distance strength * 2 for one turn by spending a ki point at second level.

Remarkable Athlete
Starting at 7th level, you can add half your proficiency
bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity, or
Constitution check you make that doesn't already use
your proficiency bonus.
In addition, when you make a running long jump, the
distance you can cover increases by a number of feet
equal to your Strength modifier. Page 72 of the PHB

So fighters who take the champion archetype can add their strength to the jump distance making it strength score + strength modifier at seventh level.
Answer: No.
First, your "walking speed" is your speed.  See PHB p181, the first sentence under Speed:

Every character and monster has a speed, which is the distance in feet that the character or monster can walk in 1 round.

So it doesn't matter that it's not referring to "movement speed".  The game term in 5e is "speed".
However, your jumping distance is not affected by your speed, per PHB 182:

Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When
you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.
Comment: @keithcurtis Look at monsters.  The walking speed is always defined as the untyped movement under Speed.  Look at the race descriptions.  Walking speed is always defined under an ability called "Speed."  Look at Aarakocra.
 Their flying speed is not listed under speed.  Look at a character sheet.  It says "speed" not "walking speed."  "Speed" by itself is essentially synonymous with "walking speed" in game terms.  Other movement modes always explicitly call themselves out.  That's the point I'm making, although perhaps I'm coming at it from the wrong direction.
Comment: Re: your "however" line, there are those who argue that your jump distance is affected by speed, in that it caps the jump. See [this question](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/57165/23970).
Comment: How do you account for different movement modes? Creatures can have a walking speed, a flying speed, a swimming speed, a climbing speed, or a fly (hover) speed. Boots of speed explicitly only affect "walking speed".
Comment: I understand your point, but the answer gives the impression that one movement mode is unaffected by another. You can't for instance move your full walking speed, dash your full dash and then jump 10 feet. Your jump is counted out of speed for the turn. (Per the section on jumping). IOW, Jumping, crawling and swimming (assume no Swim speed) come out of your walking "budget", but since the boots go out of their way to specify "walking speed" instead of just "speed", they should not be assumed to enhance other modes. I just felt that the answer as written was unclear or misleading difference.
Comment: @keithcurtis I think you're trying really hard to read too much into it.
Comment: @nitsua60 I explicitly didn't mention that precisely because the answers are so hotly contested.  Crawford and Mearls don't agree, and unless we're talking about Boots of Striding and Springing, neither do the rules.


Searching for an old SF short story that ends, "Here's looking at you down the barrel of a rifle."

Question: This is a short story written prior to 1985, and I think included in an anthology or SS collection. It is written as a first-person letter to a congressman, complaining about deplorable social conditions, and advocating a wholesale move away from conspicuous consumption. Those who refuse to walk away from their wealth will be targeted by the revolutionary activists. It ends with a line something like, "So, here's looking at you, Senator, right down the barrel of a rifle." The setting is a dystopian near-future. While I have it filed in my head as SF, since it's been about 35 years since I read it, I don't remember any other details.
Comment: What was science fiction and fantasy about this story? Was it set in the future (relative to 1985)? Also, can you recall any other details about this story (or others in the collection) that might help identify it?
Comment: This was from OMNI magazine. I do not recall the title, but the main theme of the story was privileged rich - organ duplication in humans was the current medical trend but only the rich got viable organs. The poor, by design, were given faulty organs. The story consisted of a constituent writing to his senator detailing the horrific fate of his beloved grandfather and the letter writer was coming to send his regards for the senator's role in enabling the organ harvest laws to come about.
Answer: Thanks to a suggestion from Alan, I found it in Omni.
"Body Game", a short story by Robert Sheckley, first published in Omni, December 1978, full text available here. The story is in the form of a letter:

Dear Senator, I'm writing to you because you are our senior Senator and because you said at election time last year that you were our servant and that we should write to you immediately if we had any grievances. You were very definite, and you even got a little huffy and said it was actually a citizen's duty to write to his Senator and let him know what was going on. Well, Senator, I thought about that a lot. Naturally, I didn't believe the part about you being our servant, what with you earning 50 times or 100 times, or for all I know 1000 times what we do. But the thing about writing to you, which you were so insistent on, that part got to me.
[. . . .]
"Well, I don't know," Grandfather said.
But the salesman knew. It took him about fifteen minutes to sell the lopsided body to my grandfather.
You get a one-month guarantee on retreads. My grandfather got into it the following day and it lasted him three weeks. Then the heart began to race and flutter, one kidney shut down completely, and the other three only worked part-time. A lung patch blew out, the intestines started leaking, and the liver began to shrink.
Grandfather is in bed now, and Doc Saunders says it's a day-to-day thing. The company won't make good on the body. They got some pretty nifty clauses in that contract of theirs, and our block legal advisor says we could fight it in the courts for ten years and not be sure of the outcome. And in the meantime Grandfather would be dead.
[. . . .]
Remember—there's a hell of a lot more of us than there are of you. We've never been able to bring this thing off before, my grandfather tells me—never in the history of the world. But what the hell, there's got to be a first time for everything. Maybe we'll even make it this time; pull down your Golden Age and build our own.
I don't expect you'll see it our way. So here's looking at you, Senator—right down the sights of a gun.
Comment: This story was reprinted in [The Best of Omni Science Fiction](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?35847) as well.
Comment: @MikeHarris Yes, that's listed in the [ISFDB publication history](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?64138) which I linked to in my answer.


Vertical Tabs in Panel Pages

Question: I am trying to have three forms available to the public on my site and would love to have them configured in in the vertical tabs layout. Initially I was going to have them available through node/add/form but I have since decided I would rather have them in a panel page to lose that path of node/add. Now that I have the forms in the panel page they no longer have the vertical tab/fieldset layout. How would I go about putting the forms back in that tabbed layout while staying in a panel page?
Comment: Did you find a solution on this?I have the same problem.
Answer: It looks like someone has fixed this in style!
https://drupal.org/project/node_vertical_tab_elements
Haven't tried it myself, but it looks made exactly to fix this issue.

Vertical Tabs in Panel Pages


What kind of caulk should I use for sealing windows to drywall?

Question: I installed new vinyl windows and now need to caulk them to the drywall of the window boxes on the interior side. What kind of caulk should I use? I've generally been using a nice silicone caulk, but it's not paintable and I anticipate eventually repainting the window boxes. If I use latex caulk, that'll work for repainting, but the old windows used latex caulk and it was brittle as a pretzel stick by the time I removed it.
Answer: I was going to say just acrylic latex (aka 'alex').  But since you don't like that or silicone, how about alex + silicone?  :) For example:

http://www.amazon.com/18128-Acrylic-Latex-Silicone-5-5-Ounce/dp/B00130BWLM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415915327&sr=8-1&keywords=acrylic+latex+silicone+caulk
The product is intended to address the relative weaknesses of each component.  It's paintable, but supposed to be more flexible and better able to expand and contract with temp change.
Comment: ...and whatever deity you believe in or swear at (without implying belief is required for that purpose) protect you if you get it in the illustrated package. Caulk is not toothpaste, and putting it in a toothpaste tube just makes  more caulk you have to throw out when it refuses to dispense reasonably and you have to go buy a 10 oz caulking gun tube anyway. As for the type of caulk, given the stated conditions, probably yes and +1 (though I also wonder about polyurethane caulking, but don't know how paintable it is off the top of my head.)
Comment: 100% agreed, use caulk gun.  Picture only meant to illustrate example product (i.e. the label and description was legible in this image).
Comment: Yes, I have a nice caulk gun. :)
Comment: I never used polyurethane, but quick research reveals a few tidbits of info.  First, it is paintable which is good.  Second, it is quite flexible which is also good.  Third, but not so good IMHO, is it is solvent based which means messy to cleanup and stinks while curing.  Last, and also not so good, it takes a relatively long time to cure.  For reference:  http://www.oldhousejournal.com/the_short_course_on_caulk/magazine/1417


My filter went out, will betta fish survive the night in a cup?

Question: My 2.5 gallon tank filter went out, so I had to put my betta fish in a cup for the night until the store opens. Will he live when his filter went out over night?
Comment: I assume the betta would better stay alive in the tank itself, even if the pump is not working. It depends of the betta is the only animal inside? Because more water would be store more oxygen, and would puffer the toxins (pee and poo for example) that the betta produces much better. If there is no other source for toxins in the tank (other fish for example) then I would let the betta stay in the tank!
Comment: I think he will live, but don't keep him there any longer than absolutely needed and don't feed him while he is in the cup, the extremely small water volume of the cup will easily get contaminated with food. Maybe you could also find some larger container than just a cup, it would be great.
Answer: As long as air can get into the cup and the betta can't jump out of it, yes, the betta should be fine. They are kept in small cups for much longer periods than "overnight" in pet and fish stores, after all. However, as the cup has no more filtration than the tank, there was absolutely no need to remove the betta from the tank unless the water in the tank was already toxic (in which case, you need more help than just a new filter, anyway).
The larger volume of water will help dilute toxins produced by the fish (via waste production and respiration), as well as giving the fish more space to swim and relax as compared to the stressful environment of a small cup. In fact, you should be using a minimum of 5 gallons for your fish, to provide more of these benefits.
You can find more information on tank size and why more space is better (whether it be a larger tank in general, or just the original tank compared to the tiny cup) at FishLab.
Answer: Why would you take him out of the aquarium? His only risk is low temperature and a cup will cool much faster than a larger vessel. When I raised bettas ,I kept males in separate 1 L plastic bags suspended in a large heated aquarium ; no filters , no aeration ( they breath air directly )- no problem. In the wild ,one author wrote , " A betta is at home in a water filled water buffalo foot print in the mud. " . Cold is not a problem in their native home.