Difference between Bell's inequality and CHSH

Question: In this section of the Scholarpedia article on Bell's theorem, the first paragraph comments that Bell's original inequality is not ideal for experimental verification because it requires perfect anti-correlation of the variables, and for that reason the CHSH inequality is better. I don't really understand what this means, since as far as I'm aware experiments with e.g. the CHSH game also involve Bell pairs which are perfectly correlated. They allude to some continuity in the correlations, but I don't know what this means. Could anyone elucidate?
Answer: The difference is as follows:

the original Bell inequality requires that outcomes from the same setting are always perfectly anti-correlated. It says nothing about the case where they are even marginally different.

by contrast, in CHSH, the ideal (giving maximum violation) is that outcomes from the same setting would be anti-correlated, but it is not required.

Thus, in an experiment with imperfections, CHSH still applies, but the original may not.
Comment: You might anticipate that, but to build it into the proof it essentially leads you in the direction of CHSH (I believe. It's not a distinction I've studied in detail).
Comment: I understand that anti-correlation is required to show $P(Z_a^1 \neq Z_b^2) + P(Z_b^1 \neq Z_c^2) + P(Z_c^1 \neq Z_a^2) \geq 1$. But if they were not perfectly anti-correlated, just nearly so, wouldn't this quantity still be close to 1, and still quite distinct from the $3/4$ of the quantum case?
Comment: Yeah I've come to believe that as well.


The bitcoin opcode seems to have a flat rate

Question: The bitcoin opcode seems to have a flat rate, is that correct?
Or, if bitcoin has a price per opcode, please give me the link.
If it is a flat rate, please tell me why bitcoin does not have a mechanism like ethereum.
Comment: Are you asking about the transaction fees that are paid to miners?
Answer: If by "flat rate" you mean that each opcode costs the same amount in transaction fees, then yes, Bitcoin does have a "flat rate". Opcodes don't have a direct fee themselves, the fee is based on the size of the transaction, and since each opcode is one byte, they have the same cost.
It is unnecessary to have an opcode cost scheme like Ethereum because opcodes are not very computationally expensive and do not have the same effects as Ethereum opcodes do. Bitcoin script is not Turing complete so it is impossible to loop. Each opcode can only be run a single time.
Furthermore, the more computationally expensive signature verification opcodes do have an additional cost in the form of the "signature operations" (sigops) limit. Sigops are factored into the calculation of a transactions weight which will then effect the transaction fee, but this effect is only present in extreme cases where there are a lot of sigops in a single transaction. Blocks are limited in the number of sigops that they can include.
Comment: Thank you.
The same thing happened at https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/100331/why-is-the-source-code-fee-calculated-higher-than-the-current-bitcoin-fee-amount.
I had MESSAGE_LIMIT = 80 set here, but can I think of this as the actual weight for the "op_return" opcode?
If you like, please answer.
Comment: @groundclown No. OP_RETURN isn't special. That is just how that particularly library is creating OP_RETURN outputs.


Correctness of ideal protocol of MPC in presence of malicious adversary

Question: In presence of malicious adversaries in ideal protocol of Multi Party Computation, how can honest parties get the correct output?
i.e., corrupted parties modify their inputs and give to the trusted party. Trusted Party computes the function by taking honest party inputs and modified inputs of corrupted parties which results in a wrong output.
Comment: Are you assuming honest majority? Also, what do you mean by modified inputs? For example, if the malicious party's input is $5$ and they instead send $0$? There isn't anything you can do in that case.
Comment: Assume honest majority.In example, malicious party send 0 instead of 5. In that case, trusted party computes the function using 0 as one of the input which results in wrong output.Trusted party sends the output(wrong) to honest party i.e., it violates the correctness property of MPC.
Comment: @preethi : $\:$ How does that violate "the correctness property of MPC"? $\;\;\;\;$
Answer: If the honest parties have commitments to the malicious parties' inputs or [encapsulations generated by honest parties] of those inputs, then the function can be modified to check those.  Otherwise, the value computed by the trusted party "taking honest party inputs

and modified inputs of corrupted parties" by definition results in a correct output.
Answer: The traditional MPC definition of correctness has no notion of correctness on the inputs. The traditional MPC correctness property deals with the output, i.e., the protocol is correct if $y$ where $y=f(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_n)$ is guaranteed to be output. What the $x_1,\dots,x_n$ values are is completely up to the inputting party.
So, if you want to check that the inputs are "correct", first you have to define what "correct" means. If there is one specific value that is "correct", well then, it would seem that the value is no longer private, so why use MPC at all. As Ricky suggests, maybe you have a commitment (or encapsulation) of each party's input that you can check via MPC. How these commitments are generated is another problem. If you don't trust a party to input the right value, how do you trust them to create a commitment of the right value? Another option might be that you have acceptable input ranges (e.g., the value is always greater than 10 and less than 100), that you can check.
In the end, to answer your question, you must first define what "correctness of inputs" means, because MPC does not typically handle this case. Then defining how the ideal protocol handles it is easy.


A Butterflylabs 5 GH/s Bitcoin Miner running at 270 Watts?

Question: A 5 GH/s Bitcoin Miner is running at around 270 Watt. I tested it with an Wattmeter. Is that a reasonable amount of Watt? In the comparison list on Bitcoin.it it says that those devices are running at 30 Watts! What is wrong with this miner?
Comment: mine are runnning around 70-80º celsiuis
Answer: If you can hold your hand on the Bitcoin Miner for an extended period of time without burning it, I doubt the cube is consuming 270 Watts. What does your mining software indicate the temperature is?  My two cubes run at temperatures between upper 30s and low 50s Celsius. (These cubes do make nice winter hand warmers for cold typing hands:-)
Once you rule out the cube is not sucking the power, the question then becomes what about the associated power brick or the integrity of the meter. Again, imagine the heat a sixty Watt indecent light bulb puts out.  If your brick can't be held for an extended period of time without burning your hand, you got a bad brick that mightbe a fire hazard.  Otherwise, you got a bad meter or your house may need capacitive power factor (PF) correction where you plug your cube into an outlet.
Comment: The temperature (according to the software) is between 37 and 44 degree Celsius. It is "hand" warm.
So I'm really wondering about the power consumption. The power brick is a Chinese one and it also gets warm.
Comment: The cubes shouldn't consume more power than a typical Dell laptop PC. The temperature of the power bricks should feel about the same as a laptop brick that drawls a comparable amount of power.


What is the meaning of 'Nor' in Cardassian?

Question: In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we find out that the Cardassian name for the Deep Space Nine space station is "Terok Nor."  Later, the Maquis (in The Maquis, Part I) use a protomatter implosion device to destroy the Bok'Nor.  Then in the episode Empok Nor we learn that there exists a twin station to Terok Nor called Empok Nor.  My question is: do we know enough of the Cardassian language to know what this word means in Cardassian?  Are there other instances of the Cardassians naming space craft or stations with the word "Nor"?
Comment: The *Bok'Nor* was apparently a freighter class of ship used for carrying ore, and *Empok-* and *Terok-Nor* were both mining stations. I would *guess* that Nor has some relation to mining, ore, or industry.
Comment: You might want to see my take on this below, @NatGreen.  :-)
Comment: @TZHX : Ah, just noticed your comment.  I posted my answer before reading it.  (Obviously, I concur.)
Comment: Someone should probably rewatch _Nor the Battle to the Strong_ (or, if @Praxis is right, _Mining the Battle to the Strong_) to see if it sheds any light on this.
Answer: It likely refers to "mining".
It's true that the writers and producers have never explicitly defined the word "Nor", but there is evidence to suggest that it doesn't mean "station". (Note that the news group "dictionary" in rand al'thor's answer is just fan work.)
Both Terok Nor and Empok Nor were ore-refining facilities.  As established in many DS9 episodes, including the pilot episode "Emissary", the Bajoran slave labourers were used to staff the uridium ore-refining facilities on Terok Nor.
The reason I believe that it refers to ore and/or mining rather than "station" is that in "The Maquis" episode, we have a Cardassian ship named the Bok'Nor, which is a mining vessel.
Since the only thing that the stations and the ship have in common is mining, I suspect "Nor" refers to mining or ore.
Comment: Unless the "Nor" in Bok'Nor is a homophone, but actually a different word.
Comment: I think OrangeDog's point is it could mean "space"...
Comment: The only thing? They're all also spacecraft.
Comment: @OrangeDog : One is a ship, the other two are stations.  I suspect that the Cardassians wouldn't use the same word for both.
Answer: Canon
According to Memory Alpha, very little is known canonically about the Cardassian language other than some proper nouns such as names of people or places ... however:

"Nor" carried connotations of either "station" or "base"; Terok Nor and Empok Nor both had this word in their names.
 [cited from DS9 episodes Cardassians and Empok Nor]

Non-canon but canon-based
You may be interested in this short introduction and tutorial for the Cardassian language. It was written some 20 years ago by members of the newsgroup alt.startrek.creative, including Timothy Miller and Chris Pinette. While it has never (to my knowledge) been officially sanctioned by the Star Trek showrunners, it is based on the snippets of the Cardassian language seen on-screen. According to their vocabulary list, "nor" means "station".
Comment: Why would the Bok'Nor be called the Bok'Nor if Nor means "station"? Sorry, but this doesn't make sense and none of the references are either authoritative nor particularly convincing...
Comment: Why does everyone assume Cardassian can't have homophones?
Answer: Out of canon, 'Nor' refers to a space station class.
In the TNG novel 'The Battle of Betazed', there is reference

to a type of Cardassian-designed space station

(Source)
In canon though, we don't have much information to go on.  As rightly pointed out by TZHX, there is a Cardassian Bok'Nor type Freighter.
Yet, we do not know whether Empok Nor was ever used in industrial or mining processes, so we cannot necessarily conclude that 'Nor' refers to industrial or mining processes.
Because of the use of the term in both a freighter and a space station, I am inclined to believe that Nor (exclusively) does refer to a space station type.  I would postulate that the designer of the space station, or perhaps the organisation which designed the Nor-type space stations, was called 'Nor' and the reference to it in the name of the freighter could be that another company/individual (probably of the name Bok) teamed up to designed the Bok'Nor type Freighters.
Comment: I really think that speculation is going too far.   Can you name any other instance where the name of a designer or organization was included in the name of a station or ship?   It's far more likely that *Nor* just represents something generic similar to the cases of *Deep Space*, *Station*, *USS* or what have you.
Comment: @ThePopMachine we know that outside of canon that 'Nor' refers to a class of space station.  If we accept this, then I think it's quite a reasonable explanation then of how the term 'Nor', a type of space station, ends up as part of the name of a freighter!
Comment: Where in that novel does it suggest that the word "nor" specifically means space station? The only quote I could find is *""First," Vaughn explained, "the resistance has confirmed what our limited reconnaissance already suspected. The Cardassians have begun construction of a new space station in orbit around Betazed—Sentok Nor.""* but that doesn't preclude that the word could mean anything else such as "garrison" or "outpost".
Answer: According to the show's creator, the word "Nor" just means that you're describing an object of some kind.

Q. DS9 was  formerly Terok Nor.  An upcoming episode about another Cardassian
station is "Empok Nor."  And in "The Maquis," the Cardassian freighter
Bok'Nor was destroyed.  So: what does the Cardie word "Nor" mean?
Ronald D. Moore:
"Thingamajig"?
AOL Webchat

Moving down the canon scale, we learn (in the EU novel) Day of the Vipers that the word Terok is the Cardassian military's term for the planet Bajor.

"That word…" He peered at a disk of Cardassian characters. "Terok.
I've seen it several times on your documentation. What does it mean?"
"Your grasp of our language is improving, Oak. Well done." She gave
him an indolent nod, a teacher praising her student. "I suppose it
will harm nothing to tell you." Ico stood and rounded the desk. "It is
a unique designation for your world. The Central Command generates one
for every planet that joins the Union as a colony, client,
or…associate. In our classified documentation, we refer to Bajor as
Planetary Ident: Terok

Combining both sources; Terok Nor = Bajor Thing (e.g. thing that is in orbit around Bajor).
Answer: Terok Nor   ninth station
Empok Nor   third station
-ok suffice for number groups (first second etc)
zox 0
tud 1
kot 2
emp 3
rav 4
wep 5
hek 6
nev 7
tag 8
ter 9
Comment: Hi, welcome to SF&F!  Can you cite a resource for where you got the translations from?


What does it take for a new dragonblood character to know sorcery?

Question: I'm trying to create a dragonblood beginning sorcerer based on the rules in Manual of Exalted Power - Dragon-Blooded. The background information indicates that it should be possible for a Heptigram student to know some spells by graduation, but doesn't include rules for getting them with bonus points. I also haven't come across a dragonblood equivalent of the able-to-do-sorcery charms that other exalt types have. Are there creation rules elsewhere for making a dragonblood sorcerer? And if not, how should I handle this?
Answer: The Dragon-Blooded can do Sorcery by taking the "Terrestrial Circle Sorcery" Charm. It is on p134 of the Manual of Exalted Power - Dragon-Blooded. It is the same than the one for Solars, on p220 of the main book. Note that they cannot take higher Sorcery Charms than this one.
As for the spells, this is actually described in the main book Character Creation chapter, on p75:

Characters who know one or more Sorcery Charms (derived from the Occult Ability) can begin the game knowing spells. Characters can exchange a Charm for a single sorcery spell but may not start the game with Solar Circle spells (spells of the highest level). Characters who wish to purchase spells with bonus points pay the cost for a Charm. Characters receive the in-caste discount on spells if Occult is a Caste or Favored Ability.

This works the same for Dragon-Blooded characters.
Comment: "Note that they cannot take higher Sorcery Charms than this one." Mnemon wants a word with you. ~_^ (Admittedly, the only reason Mnemon has a higher tier of sorcery is because she's got Brigid's Mantle, an artifact from the **first** sorceress -- but that sounds like a great power play plot hook for a DB group!)


How to add more columns to data grid keeping it more expressive

Question: If I have a grid view like this and I want to add more columns. One column will display buttons and the other one - notes.
Comment: Did you have any additional questions that we didn't address in our responses?
Answer: You could have a "More details" button/link that opens a modal window with additional fields.

download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Clicking on "More details" would open a popup similar to the one below.

download bmml source
Comment: @AnynameDonotcare Modals can house all sorts of content: data, media, files, interactive tools, games, etc... You could have an "Actions" section in your modal that contains all available actions you can do with a particular piece of data.
Comment: What about if i want to add more actions not just info
Comment: @AnynameDonotcare Maybe you could change the term "More details..." to say something else, but this is the way I would implement this. It effectively shows only the most important information/actions upfront, then hides the additional information/actions in the modal to avoid excessive clutter in the table.
Answer: What is shocking in your design is that 40% of the space is taken by action button and not by the main information.
The buttons are taking to much space. Promote the content, not the tools.
Some icons are very generic and don't need explanation. I don't speak Arabic but I can tell that the first button is "edit", second is "print", third "validate", fourth "settings" or "batch". Display only the icon and remove the text.
Place the primary / most used icons first and directly accessible, place the rest into a more menu (like said maxathousand).
Answer: I have a suggestion, but it depends on how complex your build can be (i.e., what are the limitations of the build/developers).
A while back, I actually spent some time building out table-design guidelines for College Board. One thing that became very useful was allowing "excess columns" to reside in an expanded portion of a row, displayed in a stacked view rather than as columns. The benefit of this is you can view multiple expanded views at a time (might get messy, but it's doable).
It also allows for quicker reference between normal and excess information, and between the excess information of two or more rows. This also freed up modals to serve more as views for key actions (batch actions, printing, editing, etc.), as opposed to containers of information.


Can I refuse to answer stupid questions at immigration?

Question: Is it legal for customs and immigration officers to ask me the reason I travelled out of the country and return the same day?
Comment: @Flimzy what makes you think this is a question about US customs? The tag seems to imply it's Jamaica.
Comment: What citizenship?
Comment: @drat: I don't think it's about US customs. But I think the answer there answers this question, and that's the litmus test for a duplicate.
Answer: If you are not a citizen, you can refuse to answer stupid questions, provided you don't mind being denied entry, flown home immediately at your own expense, and possibly having a much lower chance of being able to enter in the future. Otherwise, you need to answer the questions; countries are generally under no obligation to admit non-citizens (EU stuff aside). Also, that question is not a stupid question; it is unusual for tourists to leave a country and try to reenter the same day, which means any immigration officer is going to wonder if you really are a tourist.


What is the most sustainable way to convert forested land to farmland?

Question: My understanding is that the Mayans, who lived in a very thick forested area, used slash-and-burn to clear land for farming, which was a terribly unsustainable way to do it.  What is the most sustainable way to clear temperate forested land (such as the forested land in the pacific northwest), and prepare it for farming of plant crops?
Comment: I am not entirely convinced that you're correct in any of your assumptions. My understanding is that much of what we see in South America is the after-effects of 90%+ of the population being wiped out by disease and conquest, so it's a bit like watching Mad Max to see how Australians live :) Likewise, slash and burn works fairly well on a small scale (copse level rather than broadacre landclearing. Woodchipping and composting might be better, but it's slow and needs heavy machinery. And a lot depends on the cycle time, how fast you want to regrow the forest.
Comment: One option: sell the timber, so it displaces use of other timber. That will reduce the total impact of your clearing.
Comment: I would think it depends on the type of crop you intend to plant as well. Some would need sunny, well-drained soil, others would require shade, etc.
Answer: An organic ranch in Virginia would clear forest for pasture by first penning goats into the area for a year or so. The goats would clear out all of the underbrush while producing milk (turned into cheese) and meat. Timber could then be much more easily harvested using traditional techniques - companies would pay slightly higher rates to come in because there was virtually no understory after the goats. The stumps will be problematic, but if you've got time, you could consider inoculating with mushroom spawn and then harvesting mushrooms for a few years while the fungus breaks down the stumps. Stumps will then be much easier to remove. If time is of the essence, you'll have to dig them out, but that will be the case no matter how you go about getting to that point.
Answer: I would say a good sustainable way is to move to Agroforestry.

What is Agroforestry?

It is a farming technique of mixing trees, shrubs, herbs and plants on the same farming land. It is most probably the firs form of farming that appeared for forest dwelling humanity: if you stay in the same place generation after generation, select the plants that are useful, edible, and favor there development against others.

Why is it sustainable?

That way you won't need to remove all the trees that are here, and you'll keep a fair part of the underground life system safe.
Moreover, You'll keep a higher biodiversity, and it's quite obvious to me how this is sustainable. But don't hesitate to ask if you need explanation on that point.
Of course, this can't work if you want to use extensive mechanization to plant and harvest in the future... but that's not what "sustainable" is to me.


Can someone intentionally hurt your credit score?

Question: I know that if someone does a "hard" view of your credit score, it will lower by a bit. So what is stopping a malicious person/organization from illegally viewing your score a thousand times just to hurt you? Can that happen?
Comment: A malicious company could report you as not paying your bills even though you don't even have a business relation with them. It might take a while for you to find out and it might be hard to convince the credit bureaus that this reporting was fraudulent.
Comment: This comment is better than the answers.  Please promote.
Answer: It costs money to pull credit information, and there's a record of who requested the info. And hard pulls are only a temporary, short-term ding on your score. Basically, if someone wants to make trouble,  there are better ways to do so.
Comment: @DilipSarwate if the US is similar to the UK then yes, a hard pull in theory requires permission from the subject but in practise the agencies don't routinely verify it so a malicious party could, in theory, pull your information without permission.  If caught doing so they may face legal sanctions and/or find the agencies were no longer willing to do business with them, but they could do it.
Comment: A hard pull stays on report for 2 years.
Comment: I thought a hard pull required permission from the pullee (or a court order)? For example, when one responds to a "You have been pre-approved..." offer (which are based on soft pulls), one of the boxes that is checked ("I have read all the terms of this offer and accept them") is permission to do a hard pull on credit reports, investigate your financial condition otherwise (do you really have the income you claim to have), etc.
Comment: An example of a way a malicious person can hurt your credit score is to put false information on it. A previous landlord did this to me and it took quite some effort to fix it.
Answer: People can and do intentionally hurt other people's credit scores all the time.
This is why there are so many services to get your credit report checked, because it is very possibly that somebody did use your social security number to get a mortgage on a house or a car or open credit cards you didn't even know about, or even collections efforts you didn't know about.
It is possible that organizations hard pulled your account multiple times and paid for it.
The deterrents are inadequate and ultimately leave you with the messed up credit worthiness, regardless if civil or criminal charges were levied.
Comment: I'm not saying they don't know it causes harm.  To me malice requires an intent to cause harm as opposed to harm simply being a side effect of what they intend to accomplish.  In most cases I doubt they even think of the harm caused to the person whose identity is stolen.
Comment: Most problems with credit reports are simple errors.  Even identity fraud is generally just about making money, there is no intent to hurt someone.
Comment: @LorenPechtel Identity fraud is malice.
Comment: @LorenPechtel I'm operating under the assumption that people know the consequences of their actions, but maybe there are people that genuinely believe identity fraud is harmless since there are ways not to get caught and ways for the affected person to mitigate disaster
Comment: Intentionally????  Problems with your credit report are errors, not malice.


How to add a virtual driver like CD Emulation in Windows Explorer

Question: I'm not familiar with kernel driver development, so I want to know if there are other easy ways to add a virtual driver like CD Emulation in Windows Explorer.
Answer: One approach that might be worth considering is the Dokan project.
From the web site:

By using Dokan library, you can create your own file systems very easily
  without writing device driver. Dokan Library is similar to FUSE (Linux user
  mode file system) but works on Windows.

The DLL is directly usable from C/C++. There is a .NET binding, and a Ruby binding, both from the "official" project. Samples include a SSHFS, which mounts a remote file system over SSH, a ramdisk, and a mirror among others.
I've seen a whitepaper that demonstrated a file system organized by the tags present in a collection of MP3 files based on the Dokan library. I've also seen an description and demo that mirrored a user's Flickr photo stream in a file system.
I haven't tried it myself, yet, but plan to play with it "soon".
Answer: More detail would help a lot on this, but here are some good general suggestions:
If you're trying to mount some kind of virtual filesystem for manipulation within Explorer, a straightforward approach that Just Might Work is that you could expose your filesystem over WebDAV. There are WebDAV libraries for almost any development platform, and all of the major OSes come with the ability to map WebDAV folders for use from within their explorer UI.
Answer: Question about your question,
are you looking for a virtual driver that is similar to how explorer handles CD Emulation,
OR
Virtual CD Emulation Driver for windows explorer?


Do I have to tell the other players how much money I have?

Question: Do I have to tell the others how much money I have or may I make this a secret and everybody has to calculate/estimate themselves?
Answer: Officially, Money is hidden.
See the FAQ for Funkenschlag (the game was originally published in German under that name.

Hide the amount of money
Question: Are you supposed to hide the amount of money you have?
Answer: The rules are not explicit on this point. You should play with hidden money, to prevent AP in the last (couple of) turn(s).

As Chris notes, this can slow the game down quite a bit as

People try to keep track mentally of everything
People may spend extra time figuring out their move by obsessively calculating how that would affect other people's turns.  (The common term for this is analysis paralysis)

So if you are playing in a tournament, expect that everyone's money will be hidden.  At home with your friends, if y'all are not overly competitive or wish to avoid analysis paralysis then feel free to keep money public for everyone.
Since shuffling money back and forth in Power Grid happens frequently, you can take advantage of declaring that money will be public by getting rid of the paper money completely:

Use a whiteboard or computer spreadsheet to track money for each player
Use poker chips.  They tend to be much easier to move around quickly and can be easily counted if everyone leaves them in stacks.
Comment: Which of course greatly slows down the game as players try to track how much money everyone has.  Much simpler (and faster) just to play with open money, as all income and expenses are public and thus trackable.
Comment: @Andry: my experience is the reverse -- closed money in PowerGrid causes AP that open money avoids.  Other games may be different.
Comment: One should note also that all transactions are public knowledge; anyone paying close enough attention can track exactly how much you have.
Comment: @ChrisDodd - You are right!  I've expanded my answer a bit to give a few options.  Most groups should probably use public money IMHO.
Comment: You said this both ways so i want to make sure.  Open money causes AP
Comment: AP : For those who, like me, had to wonder about this for a while : «AP» is, I think, «Analysis Paralysis»...


Turkey Dinners For A Group of 140 People

Question: I am cooking turkey dinner for 140 people at our church. My meal consist of turkey, stuffing balls, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, noodles in gravy, and cole slaw. I am not sure of the amounts of food I should cook and your advice would be very helpful.   Thank You
Comment: "... and cole slaw"? Quantities will largely depend on who is eating.  A Football team, or the local Cub Scouts? A Women's Club, or the Contestants in the Boston Marathon? "It's all relative." More information would certainly be helpful.
Comment: It might be too late, but there's a question about planning for 100 people that might be useful : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/75505/67
Answer: Pound per person for bone-in birds, so 140 pounds of turkeys (6-9 whole birds)
Sides are a half cup per person — 60 pounds potatoes, 18 heads of cabbage for slaw, 12 pounds pasta, and 70 cups stuffing.
This is the site I use
Answer: I know this is late, but in answering another 'bulk-cooking' question, I stumbled upon a website with advice specifically for turkey dinners (with a note that this is for 'holiday' dinners, that might be more generous than usual):
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/turkey/planshop.html
In case of link rot (although some characters didn't come through ... I suspect 1 1/4 to 1 1/2):

Whole turkey and turkey parts- turkey only
Allow for 1 pound of uncooked turkey per person when purchasing a whole turkey up to 12-14 pounds or turkey pieces (legs, thighs, etc); allow at least to 3/4 pound per person when purchasing a whole turkey weighing over     14 pounds.
Reduce the total amount by 20 percent if you will have a server for the meat (not self serve) and want no leftovers.
Increase the total amount by 50% if you want lots of leftovers or expect lots of heavy eaters
Prestuffed frozen turkey (do NOT prestuff and freeze your own, it is unsafe)
Allow 1� to 1� pounds per person when purchasing a prestuffed turkey.
Turkey breast or boneless roast
Allow 2/3 pound per person when purchasing a bone-in turkey breast, which usually weighs between 4 and 8 pounds (4 pounds for each 6 people)
Allow 1/2 pound per person when purchasing a boneless turkey breast or roast, which usually weighs between 4 and 8 pounds (4 pounds for each 8 people).

To condense/summarize some of the rest of that page:

dressing or stuffing: 1/2 to 3/4 cup per person (6 ounces)
mashed potatoes: a pound raw of potato for each 3 persons for mashed potatoes.
vegetable casseroles and/or sweet potatoes and/or winter squash: 1/2 cup or 4 ounces by weight for each vegetable.  A #10 can holds 24-25 servings. This is an inexpensive place to bulk up the meal, maybe corn AND sweet potatoes AND peas with onions or green bean casserole AND one or two others.
gravy: 1/3 cup is best, 1/4 cup minimum
cranberry relish: 1 pound per 5-6 persons
rolls: 4 for each 3 persons minimum, up to 1 1/2 per person
butter: 3 pounds for each 100 people

... and notes to see the dessert and drinks pages for more info on those


Who gets all the token after you create an ERC20 smart contract?

Question: I am creating a ERC20 token, I want to know where will all of the tokens be stored. Are they all store in the address that deployed the contract?
Answer: Depends on what your contract looks like.  Usually it's the creator of the contract's address
Comment: Ok. When I deploy it on the Testnet, I need to add the tokens contact to the creators address and then I get all the tokens that where created. Will it be the same way on the main net?
Comment: Yes.  I'd test on ropsten net(if that's your testnet) since it resembles the mainnet the closest.
Answer: Actually, the tokens are never explicitly 'stored' anywhere. They only ever exist in the balance mapping of your ERC20 token contract.
Typically the creator of the contract is assigned to own all the tokens, but this depends on the implementation. It would also be totally fine to only 'create' the tokens when they are first time transferred to someone, for example.


Can anyone without knowledge of encrypted tech use bitcoin?

Question: I am interested in registering online, however I haven't got any knowledge on encrypted language not even on software design or whatever it is called.  Is it possible for a person like me to register and enjoy the benefits from bitcoin that surely will become the currency of our modern generation:)
Comment: related: [I am new to Bitcoin, how can I get started?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22796/5406), possible duplicate of [What software and skills do I need?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/1635/5406)
Comment: People know nothing about fiat currency, and the tech behind it, but they use it all the time.. :)
Answer: If you just want to use Bitcoin, it is no harder than using a credit card or online-banking. I suggest reading up on some safety best-practices in order to protect your funds, and to use two-factor authentication.
We have put together a collection of frequent questions new users ask. It is to be found here: I am new to Bitcoin, how can I get started?.
It is essentially a bunch of pointers to yet other questions, but should help you find answers to questions that you are concerned with now. Don't worry, you don't have to read all of them at one time or even at all.
If you want to understand how Bitcoin works under the hood, it is more complicated. However, when you think about it, so are credit cards and online-banking. ;)
Answer: Of course you can use the bitcoin without knowledge of encrypted tech !
all you have to do is to create an online wallet and after everything its easy.
Mining its another story , you will need very strong hardware in order to create bitcoins by yourself.
You can start things going from here : https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet .
Regards


vim-latex shortcuts

Question: I am facing a problem for using shortcuts provided by vim-latex. Say, I
want \textbf, so I was trying `bf.
But, given, `b is a shortcut for
\beta, I always end up with something \betaf.
FBF works, how can I use `bf?
any help?
Answer: The vim-latex plugin uses its own implementation of the :imap command, which here is responsible for detecting patterns that should be replaced.
According to the documentation, the timeout functionality of :imap, which would have allowed it to wait some time before checking for known patterns and allowing your usage of `bf was removed in vim-latex' own IMAP() function to allow for slower typing while still recognizing patterns.
IMAP() does not have the ability to wait until you probably finished typing and instead tries to match what it sees right now.
Currently, I have no idea as to how one would either add that functionality to IMAP() or use its mappings with :imap.
So, simply put, this happens because `b gets already replaced before you type f.

Or as the section 3.12 Making your own Macros via IMAP() of the vim-latex documentation puts it:

If you have two mappings which end in a common lhs, then the mapping with the longer lhs is used. For example, if you do
call IMAP('BarFoo', 'something', 'tex')
call IMAP('Foo', 'something else', 'tex')
Then typing BarFoo inserts "something", whereas Foo by itself inserts "something else".
Also, the nature of IMAP() makes creating certain combination of mappings impossible. For example if you have
call IMAP('foo', 'something', 'tex')
call IMAP('foobar', 'something else', 'tex')
Then you will never be able to trigger "foobar" because typing "foo" will immediately insert "something". This is the "cost" which you incur over the normal :imap command for the convenience of no 'timeout' problems, the ability to correct lhs etc.

Using IMAP() you could try looking into ~/.vim/ftplugin/latex-suite/main.vim and adjust the mappings to your convenience with the above explained restrictions.
For example make the following changes:
line 93 b → bg
and add a definition for bf.
I am not entirely sure, that bg is unused by default. And the above would break the consistency of the greek-letter-mappings.

vim-latex shortcuts


Substituting vegetable oil spread for oil in cake mix

Question: My cake mix calls for 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and I am out of it. Can I use Blue Bonnet 53% vegetable oil spread in the place of the oil? Thanks!
Answer: I have heard that you can. However, I would be reluctant to do so because rather than using 100% veg oil, you would be substituting a product that has only 53% veg oil. Most likely your end product would be drier.
Also, most veg oil speads contain salt, which could affect the flavor. And most contain water that could affect the texture. Depending on the specific product, various other ingredients may be present that could cause other issues.


My Lexus ES 300 2003

Question: My car was sitting and had not been started in a month when I returned home I had AAA jump the battery. Car would turn over but would only stay on for a few seconds. Tried this twice. Also key fab would not let me unlock doors. Is this a battery issue or possibly an alternator issue?
Comment: You should properly charge the battery with an external charger, then re-test it.
Comment: When I say "properly charge the battery" then it means overnight so it gets a proper charge, not 5 minutes quick boost...
Comment: I think that is what AAA did.
Comment: Alternator was replaced 3 years ago
Comment: AAA attempted to  jumpstart the car, they did not charge the battery. Please do as suggested by @SolarMike or failing that if you so prefer, get a new battery
Comment: BTW ... Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!
Comment: If a battery is too far gone in terms of discharge, the alternator will not be able to fully charge it.... Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair
Answer: Modern cars have electronics that are always on and use up battery power, for instance alarms and the systems that listen for your keyfob. Lead acid batteries also lose charge over time, the combination of the two means that if you leave your car sitting long enough eventually you won't be able to start it.
How long you can leave a car sit depends on your battery's condition and how much drain there is from your car's electronics. Batteries lose capacity as they age (and due to other factors), so an older battery which may work when driven often may lose enough charge to not start after sitting for a couple of weeks. A battery in good condition should be able to start a car after sitting 4 weeks in normal conditions.
Jump-starting a car doesn't charge the battery, it supplies enough power to get the engine running, then your battery will be charged by the alternator. It takes time for this to happen, if you do a short drive and stop the engine the battery will not have enough charge to start the car again. You either need to drive the car for awhile or the battery needs to be put on a charger for several hours. If the battery won't hold a charge it needs to be replaced.

My Lexus ES 300 2003


How to build a network application topography?

Question: My company has quite a few servers, and the applications that run on these servers are spread over many machines. Does anyone know of a program that will visualize these relationships in a MS Visio type manner? I looked into Spice-works, The Dude and a handful of other solutions, none will automate the process.
Answer: You may look here:  http://visio.mvps.org/3rdparty.htm  and see if anything stands out.  Which applications are you referring to?  Another solution might be to create the relationships in SCOM (even with the eval copy) and then export that to Visio.  There'd be a learning curve for SCOM though.
Answer: If you can get your hands on Visio 2000 Enterprise edition there is a built in tool for scanning networks and creating generated network diagrams.
They removed the tool in later versions in favor of third-party development in that sector, so you should check the link TheCleaner provided.
Answer: LanSurveyor has an agent that will allow you to do a software inventory in addition to your network topology.  It's fairly spendy ($995 on sale, $1995 regularly) but they do have a demo version.  I've never tried it and don't know anyone who has.
You can also export to Visio
Answer: I know of a suite that will do it if you have more money than you know what to do with :)
But seriously, I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that OpenNMS or Nagios could do something like this.


My car locks lower gears when on high speed, why?

Question: When I'm on say 50 Km/h my first gear is not accesible and second gear is too, 3rd gear however is hard to push in but 4th gear is easy to slip in, why?
Answer: I'm assuming you have a manual transmission.
Stop doing that, you will damage your transmission.
Your powertrain can be broke down into three sections. The engine, including the fly wheels. The clutch and input to the transmission. Finally the transmission output.
When you push the clutch the engine is disconnected from the transmission input. When you shift a gear, you change the ratio between the input of the transmission and the out put. Also when you shift gears there are collars called blocking rings that slide over and engage a set of teeth to lock you into gear. The blocking ring and teeth have to be spinning at the same speed for this to happen otherwise they'll just grind. To get them spinning the same speed a synchronize is used. The synchronizer uses friction to get the two part spinning together. As you drive you accelerate the engine to gain more speed. Then you push in the clutch the disengage the transmission. As you shift into the next gear the synchronizer will slow the clutch allowing the next gear to engage. As you shift gears the engine also slows so that when the clutch is let out they are roughly at the same speed.
Now lets play a hypothetical game. Lets say you can reach 20Km/h in first gear at 6000 rpm. How fast would the engine have to spin to get the car to 40Hm/h. The answer is 12000 RPM. How fast would the engine have to spin would to get the car up to 60Km/h. the answer is 18000 RPM.
In this hypothetical if you're driving at 60Km/h and try to shift the car into 1st gear how fast are you asking clutch to spin. The answer is 18000 RPM. The synchronize just can't handle that. Because there is such a difference in speed the gear just won't engage. It's probably grinding but so fast that you can't tell.
Comment: @JomarSevillejo The engine would be fine but the synchronizers would not be happy. As i mentioned the synchronizers use a friction type material and that can be damaged.
Comment: @JomarSevillejo Switching to a higher gear at low speed slows the clutch down. This will not damage anything. If you go into a gear that is too high you will lug the engine, meaning that the engine RPM will drop too low and the engine will have a hard time recovering while speeding up the car.
Comment: @JomarSevillejo just to add that if you drop the engine RPM too low by using a gear that is too high you can damage the engine.  This lugging significantly increases the forces on the internal of the motor and can result in high wear and outright mechanical failure (stuff breaks).
Comment: Thanks for the answer vini! no harm done to the engine. While I was on high speed, I have clutch floored all the way down and never had let my foot off the clutch. I assume this was safe while I was testing, am I correct vini? or would this still do any damage?
Comment: Thanks vini, I missed the part of the gears still spinning because the car was still moving. I was wrong to think that the gears in the transmission were not moving because the engine was detached. A big face palm. Thanks vini!
Comment: I just have one more question though. I have noticed that switching to a higher gear at low speeds (with the clutch floored) is still easier than switching to low gears from high speeds. Why is that? Does that damage the synchros too?
Answer: In Russia many pro drivers and just experienced drivers brake with transmission by shifting to lower gear in speed and letting go clutch fast no problem.
Comment: @JomarSevillejo It can be damaing, but experienced drivers will rev the engine to match the transmission speed, such that when they release the clutch, the engine is already spinning at the required rpm for the lower gear. This is called rev-match downshifting, and is the least damaging way to use the engine to slow down (engine braking). Pro drivers will use a technique called "heel-toe shifting", where they will press the clutch with their left foot and brake with their right toe as normal, then rev match using the heel of their right foot while still pressing the brake.
Comment: Is letting go of the clutch not bad for the drivetrain? It's taking all the enrgy so sudden.


Disabling "Storage space running out" notification in Status Bar?

Question: Is there any way to disable the "Storage space running out" notification on Cyanogenmod 10.1.3 [Android 4.2.2], through ADB or otherwise ?
Answer: To permanently disable storage notifications, try long-pressing on the notification, go to App Info and uncheck Show notifications. You must do it through long-pressing.
If it is un-checkable, hit Force Stop and confirm.
This is a known method to get rid of Verizon's persistent Wifi notification: Similar Guide
Hope this helps,
Comment: Yeah, according to many other posts on here, there's no *permanent* way to disable it. I'm surprised no-one has created an Xposed module for it yet. I'm going to plan on making one when I have free time.
Comment: Forcing stopping Android System got rid of the Storage notification, however the Show notifications checkbox is still not operable.
Answer: Since the device is rooted you can install a compatible Xposed Framework1 and then the Xposed module NotifyClean. The app's description notes:

You could configure which apps are allowed to create notifications in the top left area, the notification area. If an app creates a notification it will be collected and added to the list.
You could deny all notifications of an app or only specific messages - if it's not a customized notification. So I used it to hide "waiting for connection", but not "you are connected".

Install the module, activate it in Xposed Installer app, reboot the device, wait for the "Storage space running out" notification, long press the notification → App info/details → note the app's label causing that notification. It may possibly be Android System.
Now, launch NotifyClean → tap the entry of the app whose label you noted → select the notification you want to hide (it would turn red). Reboot and the notification would remain hidden.

1 Xposed Framework: Android 4.x, Android 5.x and 6.x
Comment: I've not tested on that particular notification but I don't suppose the app would fail for that notification.


Disable Ctrl+C in GNU screen?

Question: How can I disable the key combination Ctrl+C on GNU-screen? Actually I would have to get used to it, but I press Ctrl+C rather than Ctrl+A+D out of habit.
Answer: Now I've found the answer myself. The instructions
defscrollback 30000
bindkey "^C" echo 'Blocked. Please use [Ctrl]+[A] + [Ctrl]+[Enter] + [Y]'
bindkey "^D" echo 'Blocked. Please use [Ctrl]+[A] + [Ctrl]+[Enter] + [Y]'
bind "^M" quit

in the file
~/.screenrc

lead to the fact that C-c only executes the echo command, thus no longer sends an interrupt. Instead you can stop the screen with ^M or Ctrl+Enter. Because I use bind (unlike bindkey) you have to press C-a first. The confirmation prompt can be confirmed with Y. The advantage of this solution is that I don't have to change the actual Java or Python program. Please remember that running screen sessions must be restarted in order to read the new ~/.screenrc file. (This path depends on the user, e.g. /root/.screenrc or /home/user/.screenrc.)
Helpful links:

Docu: http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/screen_13.html
Find your own key combination: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/116588/239596

Tested with

Screen version 4.01.00devel (GNU) 2-May-06
Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
MobaXterm v10.9 Build 3656 (Windows)
Answer: Ctrl+C sends the INT (interrupt) signal to the process currently in the foreground.  This is an important signal to be able to send, so the best thing would be to just learn not to press that key combination by mistake.
You can also remap that key combination so that you have another control sequence that sends the INT signal.  For example, you may make Ctrl+G do the same thing with the shell command
stty intr ^G

The Ctrl+C key combination will then just send a character with ASCII code 3.
Again, it would probably be less problematic to just learn to use Ctrl+C correctly.
Comment: Thank you. I'll take care of it. Unfortunately I can only use your command outside of screen. A Java or Python program runs inside. I have already pressed the wrong key combination so often that I have to do something. ;)
Comment: @uav Ah. If you are able to modify the code of the program, you could make it ignore the `INT` signal completely.
Comment: That is possible, but I have posted a more general answer. ;)
Answer: You can avoid this issue in the first place by using logging as follows:

While creating the screen, use this command to generate a log file:

screen -L -Logfile file_name.log

Now, to check the screen, do not resume it; instead read the log file interactively, with one of these two commands:

tail -f -n 20 file_name.log

watch tail file_name.log

Hope this helps.
Comment: Well, just as I have the habit of pressing [Ctrl]+[C], I have the habit of going in with `screen -r`, so your solution is only something for disciplined people - who don't exist. ;) My point is not to avoid the error, but to prevent it. ;D

Disable Ctrl+C in GNU screen?


Is it okay to mark an answer as 'Accepted' when I can't test it?

Question: I asked a technical question on dba.stackexchange.com. I got a very good answer, but because I made many technical changes to my environment before I read the answer, I'm no longer in a position where I can actually test the answer. Is it still appropriate to mark this answer as accepted?
Comment: Related: [How does accepting an answer work?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5234/how-does-accepting-an-answer-work)
Comment: One lesson could be that it's better to keep a copy of the state your system was in when asking a question in order to be able to check any incoming answers, which is a valuable part of the Q&A process. Without checking you don't really know.
Answer: Formally, you can use any criteria you like to accept an answer. So your question is really about the most sensible way to decide.
If there's no prospect of you ever testing any other answer either, you might as well accept the one that seems most likely to answer your question.
Even if you can only test it later, it's reasonable to accept an answer for now and possibly change that later if you discover it doesn't really work.
Answer: That is really subjective. When you have the feeling that some answer solves your problem, then sure, accept it. You see, even when you later find: "err, it doesn't work, you can always un-accept". Or when a different, "better" answer comes in, you simply move the accept.
Your decision is not cast in stone!
Of course it might be useful to add a comment "this looks great, but I can't verify it right now, but just to be polite, accepting ... for now".
Also note: by accepting an answer, you basically "invite" others to maybe do that testing. And those people can also leave comments if they find "nope, doesn't work".
Answer: When you can't test it, there's no point in accepting it. Accepting an answer simply means that the OP received an answer that worked for them personally; therefore, since you can't test it, it hasn't really helped you.
Comment: I agree with this answer. Not being able to check an answer means it literally is not possible to know if it answers the question for the asker. Marking as accepted would be equal to lying. Up-voting and commenting with an apology why an acceptance is not possible would be the right thing to do.
Comment: @Ramhound This question asks about the ethics.of the proposed action. It doesn't take away the freedom to choose, but it adds a judgement to it. At least that's how I see it.
Comment: @Trilarion - The author of a question can accept an answer for any reason.  Likewise, the community is welcome to downvote an accepted answer, if it's wrong.


What is this open, vertical rectangular symbol?

Question:
In Rautavaara's Second Piano Sonata, first movement, beginning 20 bars before the end, there is a tablature-like symbol. What does it mean?
Comment: Forearms or 2x4 lumber :-) (tone clusters)
Answer: The symbol denotes a tone cluster that includes all chromatic pitches between D1 and D2. The notation is explained in Rautavaara's "Table of Clusters".1

The effect can be heard in this recording by Laura Mikkola. The link is timed to the cluster.

Another example of this notation can be found at the end of (the piano arrangement) of Danny Elfman's "Victor's Piano Solo" from The Corpse Bride.2

(Arguably, the notation above is not an exact representation of the piece as heard in the movie. That specific effect could be notated with the cluster chord indication plus a downward-pointing arpeggio sign.)

1 Zachary Matthew Ridgeway, "The Fire Sermon: Program and Narrative in Einojuhani Rautavaara's Second Piano Sonata", PhD Dissertation (University of Texas, 2018). (Accessed 29 Jan 2021.)
2Danny Elfman, "Victor's Piano Solo (from The Corpse Bride)", in The Halloween SongBOOk (Alfred Publishing, n.d.); song is (c) 2005 by Warner-Barham Music LLC.
Comment: @Clockwork Great find! I've added "Victor's Piano Solo" to the answer. Regarding Rautavaara's notation, you'll see in the chart that the lines indicating top and bottom are placed just above or below (respectively) the intended pitches. So the bottom line being precisely on the C ledger line means that D is the lowest pitch. Had he wanted C included, the bottom line would have been slightly below the ledger line.
Comment: I remember seeing those rectangles on Victor Piano Solo sheet. I always thought it was an unofficial notation which meant "press random chords to make crazy noise".
Comment: Is there a reason it's from a D to another D? It looks like the bottom line is on C and the top line is on D?
Comment: Just for the curoius: There is a Unicode symbol for that; see page 2 of https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D100.pdf.


What is the meaning of the word Ger?

Question: A Ger can mean a stranger, foreigner and many other things but what is the origin? I have heard the Ibn Ezra say that it comes from the Hebrew word Gargir meaning a certain type of berry because it is severed form the branch. Can anyone provide a source.
Comment: I always thought it came from the word _gur_, which means "sojourn." A _ger_ is one who sojourns among you. But this is not an explanation from the Mefarshim.
Comment: @DanF - See [Jastrow's](http://www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow/) definition of _gur_ and _ger_.
Comment: @ezra can you provide any sources for this?
Comment: @ezra There  is something called a *ger toshav* - If you were to consider the term *ger* from "soujourning", then, perhaps the term *ger toshav* creates a redundancy!
Answer: The אבן עזרא in Bereishis (15:13)

כי גר יהיה זרעך נקרא בלשון הקדש האיש שיש לו משפחה כסעיף שהוא דבק בשרש,
  על כן נקרא אזרח, כי טעמו כאזרח רענן (תה' לז, לה). וטעם גר כמו הגרגיר
  שנכרת מן הסעיף. ויש חסרי לב שזה הטעם רחוק בעיניהם. ואלו היו יודעים טעם
  כל אות וצורתו אז יכירו האמת
Comment: Good find. Makes sense to look at the 1st instance of the word! When possible, please translate or summarize the above.
Answer: Rabbenu Bahya on Ex. 22:20:

The word גר for a stranger is derived from גרגיר, an isolated berry at the far end of a solitary branch.
Comment: What does it add to the answer of shoelumeshiv?
Answer: The term ger means "stranger," not a convert in the Bible. When the Israelites are called gerim in Egypt (the plural form), it means strangers, not converts in Egypt.
Answer: What is the ger? A convert, an outsider, or a Jew?
Contrary to what many people think, the Torah does not consider the ger to be a convert. For example, while Numbers 15:15 gives the ger rights to bring gift offerings, the ger is more like a protected foreigner (נכר) living in the land of Israel. While the ger is not an Israelite, he lives "within your gates," and is so vulnerable socially and economically, must be protected. They are compared to widows and orphans. But Deuteronomy does consider a ger to be in some part of the covenant, implying a mixed-status. But while Deuteronomy sees the ger as a poor serf, the Priestly ger share almost equal status. The "thetorah.com," recognizes that scholars date the Priestly sources around the times of the Second Temple, approaching rabbinic Judaism. But ger in Deuteronomy is not a circumcised proselyte, a convert, or Jew. Actually, the circumcised ger does not become a civilian but is "as a citizen" (כְּאֶזְרַח).
Tannaitic literature Midrash, Pesahim 8:8 treats the Passover sacrifice (Exodus 12) as conversion. It seems to state that uncircumcised gers are permitted to practice the offering. However, the circumcision of a ger does not make him a Jew any more than an uncircumcised Jew is still a Jew. All it requires is that its participants be circumcised, whether Jew or not, makes no difference.
In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the term prosēlytos (προσήλυτος) is used for ger. This Greek word means "stranger," not a proselyte. Paroikos (πάροικος) in Greek means "living among," "joining," or "neighbor," denoting foreigners. These people, according to the Greek Septuagint do not adopt Israelite behavior or identity. Although the Greek proselytos (via Latin) is the source of the English word "proselyte," meaning convert, it meant at that time simply foreigner.
In fact, in the days of the Second Temple, there was no legislated transition ritual that turned a gentile into a Jew. Actually, it was more of a continuum, rather than a dichotomy.[1] Even Josephus is silent on the ritual of conversion.[2] However, later as time progressed, the rabbis understood גר תושב (ger toshav) to mean a non-Jew who fulfills some biblical commandments while (ger she-nitgayyer) or (ger tzedek), meaning "a righteous ger," refers more to a convert who underwent the practice of conversion.
[1] See Shaye Cohen's The Beginnings of Jewishness: pg, 140-162.
[2] See conversion of King Izates of Adiabene

What is the meaning of the word Ger?


60 year old steel drain pipe

Question: I was wondering if Any one knew whether there is an effective way to clean out the steel drain pipe from my bathroom sink. Also, the fitting where it attaches to the main stack (cast iron) is badly corroded & leaking. My bathroom sink is presently not draining. Do I snake or put in new pipe. Are the cast iron fittings difficult to work with?
Comment: I would snake first. the easiest way to work with cast is to remove it and put in plastic.
Answer: If the existing cast iron is already corroded to the point that it is leaking, you need to fix it. The simplest way is to cut out the corroded portion and re-pipe it in plastic. See how best to cut & tie into cast iron.
When re-piping, you can keep it to just the cast iron portion or you can also re-pipe the sink's drain arm at the same time. Doing both at the same time may be easier depending on the layout of your plumbing.
Regardless of how much you re-pipe, you may still need to cleanout the drain to remove the clog as it could be located further downstream (or within the sink's arm itself if you re-use the existing) The best way to clean out a clogged drain is to snake it. See how to use a plumber's snake.
Keep in mind that if your drain lines are very corroded, the act of using a snake has the potential to puncture further holes as the pipe's wall will be thin. Also, using clog removal chemicals can also be risky with the added safety concerns of leaking chemicals.

60 year old steel drain pipe


Why is 2 meter pre-programed?

Question: When I tried to enter frequencies in my 2 meter YAESU, it was already programmed for 144.000 MHz as the primary. WHY?
Comment: Is there some other behavior you are expecting?
Comment: "primary" what?
Answer: You'll have to be more specific about what "the primary" is (give your radio model and the exact words/labels it uses in your question) for a more definite answer, but most likely it's simply that 144.000 MHz is the lowest frequency that is part of the 2-meter band (this is true worldwide), so it's a reasonable place to start for a VFO which has got to have some frequency to be on.
Note that you should not actually transmit on 144.000 MHz, because it is the lower band edge, and so the lower sideband of your signal would extend outside of the band.
Answer: It's just the default setting. You can change it either through the menus or with the software, depending on which model radio you have.

Why is 2 meter pre-programed?


Maple stored variable to be read into Matlab

Question: I have a a function $f(k)$ (calculated in Maple) which is huge and stored in a variable called 'sum' on my drive (with the help of 'save' command in Maple). Since the function is huge, Maple is unable to plot it and is taking endless time. Thus, I want to read the variable 'sum' into Matlab and plot it. I am unable to also just copy paste as the function is really big. I have searched around but am unable to find a solution. Can somebody help me out?
Comment: Is 'sum' an expression or a procedure? What sort of operations does it entail? (Just simple algebra, or are there e.g. transcendental functions?) And on an unrelated note, if you unprotect 'sum' in maple and reassign something to it that's not a procedure for summation, you're lucky if you still get useful answers from maple...
Comment: 'sum' is an expression and only has polynomial functions.
Answer: You can use the CodeGeneration package to do this. It allows to translate to different languages, being Matlab one of those.
A simple example here:
with(CodeGeneration);
suma := sum(sin(n*x)/factorial(n), n = 0 .. 10);

then
Matlab(suma)

with answer
cg3 = sin(x) + sin(0.2e1 * x) / 0.2e1 + sin(0.3e1 * x) / 0.6e1 + sin(0.4e1 * x) / 0.24e2 + sin(0.5e1 * x) / 0.120e3 + sin(0.6e1 * x) / 0.720e3 + sin(0.7e1 * x) / 0.5040e4 + sin(0.8e1 * x) / 0.40320e5 + sin(0.9e1 * x) / 0.362880e6 + sin(0.10e2 * x) / 0.3628800e7;

Off course, you can store this in a string and then write it to a text file, or translate a Maple procedure to a Matlab function.


UK visa courier question

Question: Me and my husband are planning for UK visitor visa later in year and have our biometrics appointment for this Thursday at Atlanta Georgia. If anyone can explain the courier part of it we would appreciate it.
Do we send the documents to UK embassy in Atlanta or which address?
Does anyone recommend buying the round trip or one way courier option from VFS vs UPS? Thanks a bunch in advance.
Would we need to purchase 2 separate mailing labels or can we use one for both applications?
Answer: This is answered in section 3 of the UKVI guidance:

Your biometric confirmation receipt will be stamped at your appointment. You then have 5 days to post this, your application form, your passport and supporting documents to UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI). All applications must be accompanied by a valid passport with at least one page without any endorsements. If the application arrives at the decision making centre without a passport the application will be refused.
You should post your application to:
Non-settlement applications
UK Visas and Immigration
  British Consulate General
  845 Third Avenue
  New York
  10022
...
3.1 Return shipping
To have your documents returned you must provide a fully addressed prepaid electronic shipping label (we cannot accept ground services and non-electronic waybills). Put your return shipping label and envelope inside the package, and keep a copy of the waybill for your records.

See the answer to this question on how the applications should be mailed.

UK visa courier question


How to Credibly Answer a Question

Question: I would like to open a question that would lead to how we should encourage sourcing  and what the hierarchy of source material with something like first source materials (taking the US as an example: government sourced documentation, case law, legislation, administrative rulings and EOCs, government sourced research) on the high end of quality, with no sourcing or maybe wikipedia or reddit threads on the low end as a method of quality control.  Given that previously sourcing was upvoted quite extensively, but we never provided the community any standard around that, we could address this head on.  Think it would help with some of the weaker answers we have been seeing.
Answer:
"first source materials (taking the US as an example [...])".

You might have had a point in US history at some point or another... Maybe... To be frank I'm not even sure when that might have been -- given how corruption, cronyism, and racism permeate US history.
In the age of Trump though (to say nothing of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) you've an extremely strong headwind before you to make the case that "government sourced documentation, case law, legislation, administrative rulings and EOCs, government sourced research" are better sources than generally agreed upon (by scientists/specialists) peer reviewed articles, or the newspaper and wikipedia articles that echo them.
Answer:
should [we] encourage sourcing?

Encourage: yes. Mandatory: no.

what [would be] the hierarchy of source material?

That's impossible to define, as it is in the eye of the beholder.
It would quickly devolve into whether Fox News is more or less reputable than the New York Times or not. With lots of examples from both sides that the other site is not reliable.
Wikipedia tried this. We can easily agree that on political topics, Wikipedia is full of rule lawyers that will revert any edit they do not like. With the result that on hot topics, Wikipedia is totally unreliable in practice. It is rated as 'low' by the OP for a reason.
So let's not go that way.
With respect to "peer reviewed articles," there are lots of problems as well. On top of that, there is a Replication Crisis - especially in the social sciences, which includes political sciences - because many results reported cannot be validated by independent research.
All in all, I don't think we will be better off with a formal rule.
Comment: Duh, in Italy they don't add [sugar](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/24/robert-lustig-sugar-poison) in Pizza dough, and the portions are smaller, meaning less carb. Why are you presenting this as if it was controversial, when there's a large swath of research that suggests that, yeah, sugar is bad, and -- however much vegans dislike the consequence -- eating lots of carbs isn't that great either?
Comment: Yeah, there are significant problems with peer review today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/27/fabricated-peer-reviews-prompt-scientific-journal-to-retract-43-papers-systematic-scheme-may-affect-other-journals/
Comment: @KDog Thanks for the link - I'll replace the current one as it seems to be controversial.
Comment: I'll put a strawman out there and let people react to it.

How to Credibly Answer a Question


How to install SharePoint 2010 on Windows 10 Pro

Question: I am using SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7. Can anyone please help me to know if we can install SharePoint 2010 on Windows 10 Pro? Any help would be appreciated.
Answer: Apparently you can't have SharePoint 2010 on Windows 10.
Take a look at this article.
These are the system options for SharePoint 2010:

Install SharePoint on Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 x64 (or
Windows Server 2008 R2 x64).
Use Microsoft Hyper-V and install
SharePoint on a virtual machine running a Windows Server 2008 Service
Pack 2 x64 (or Windows Server 2008 R2 x64) guest operating system.
Install SharePoint on Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista Service Pack 1
x64, or Windows Vista Service Pack 2 x64.
Use Microsoft Hyper-V and
install SharePoint on a virtual machine running a Windows 7 x64,
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 x64, or Windows Vista Service Pack 2 x64
guest operating system.
Answer: I have been able to install SP2010 Foundation on Windows 10 Pro using instructions from MS. They also cover installing the full SP2010 as the only difference is the installer has a different name. The link to the instructions is https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx
The instructions are for earlier versions of Windows, but they still work for Win 10 Pro.
In case the link dies, here's a shortened version containing the main points:
Copy the SharePointFoundation.exe (or setup.exe) installation file to a folder on the computer where you are installing SharePoint and doing your development, such as in the following path:
c:\SharePointFiles

Run the installer and install the software prerequisites.
Close the installer
Extract the installation files by opening a Command Prompt window, and then typing the following command at the directory location of the folder where you copied the installation file in the previous step.
For SharePoint Foundation 2010:

c:\SharePointFiles\SharePoint /extract:c:\SharePointFiles

For SharePoint Server 2010:

c:\SharePointFiles\OfficeServer /extract:c:\SharePointFiles

Using a text editor, open the installation configuration file, config.xml, located at the following path c:\SharePointFiles\files\Setup\config.xml
Add this line inside the <configuration> tag:

<Setting Id="AllowWindowsClientInstall" Value="True"/>

Save the configuration file.
This change is what stops the infamous
This product requires Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 or above.
setup error.
You can now run (as administrator) the Setup.cmd file in C:\SharePointFiles
Comment: Small correction (same error is on the original page)  - the file to be executed in the command line should be the same as the one copied - i.e. either both should be named SharePointFoundation.exe or SharePoint.exe (in my case it was SharePoint_SP2_en-us.exe).
Comment: I am still getting same error when I run Sharepoint setup.exe -
The tool was unable to install Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role
Comment: @AmitKumarVerma Sounds like your trying to install it on Windows Server 2016. You cannot do this because these roles no longer exist. SharePoint 2016 is the minimum version that works on Server 2016. One alternative is to drop back to Windows Server 2012.
Comment: Thanks Dean for your quick response. I was installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 on Windows 10


How to show the mandatory fields on an iOS device?

Question: I have to show more than 11 fields within the screen. 4 fields are mandatory. How should I indicate the mandatory fields? Is there any standard or any ideas?
Answer: The standard, albeit not very creative, is an asterisk on the label. Since we're here to talk UX not UI and it's all about making it easy to understand this is probably the best option.
As a UI designer I like to combine that with more aesthetically pleasing I like to use other methods as well as this - see my question from a couple of weeks ago - Amber outlined required field
Comment: UI is on topic as well
Comment: @TJH: "Since we're here to talk UX not UI" -> it's a common misperception that UX and UI are not related. But UX encompasses different concepts, partly UI too. From [iOS Wow Factor](http://books.google.de/books/about/iOS_Wow_Factor.html?id=4c2krgrsUSsC&redir_esc=y): "*[...]This led to the emergence of the more comprehensive "user experience" mindset and its gestalt approach to product design. That mindset included usability, but also encompassed aesthetics, perception, and emotional engagement on the part of the user."*
Answer: I would write a gray italic hint inside the textbox, which vanishes when focused.
You could hint "required" in the four mandatory fields, or "optional" in the rest. But don't do both, to make differentiation easier.
Answer: Can you physically group the fields? If so, group the 4 required ones, put them at the top, and label them required.
Comment: I'd be worried that users might not read fieldset legends - only the form labels themselves.
Comment: a valid worry. At that point, it becomes more of a UI design problem.
Answer: There are few techniques to let the user understand what is mandatory and what's not. The iOS Human Interface Guideline doesn't state anything about that, but as far as I can say from my experience you could follow few different ways:

As TJH said, an asterix somewhere around the textfield can get the job done, even though not really aestetically pleasing.
Provide a Done button that becomes selectable only after the user filled up all the mandatory fields
As shown in this video, you could put an icon in the right part of the text field that changes its state depending on the user input. For instance, if the user moves the focus away from a mandatory field that is not filled up, a "wrong" symbol will appear on the right.
This approach gives you the advantage that you can embody even a more fine grained validation for you text fields, so you could present the error even if the input is not correct.

I usually adopt a combination of the 2nd and 3rd techniques, so to let few room for interpretation to the user.
There are of course probably many other ways to achieve the result, here I posted just those the got to my mind now.
One last thing, in the iOS Human Interface Guideline, they say:

Make it easy for users to input their choices. For example, you can
  use a table view or a picker instead of a text field, because it's
  usually easier for people to select an item from a list than to type
  words.

You are asking for how to show mandatory text fields, but maybe try to think if some of them can be mutated in pickers with few standard entries. With them you could put as the standard selection the first choice, so that the user will be obliged to change it to the correct one (without chances to leave it blank).


Is freebitco.in legit site?

Question: Is freebitco.in a legit site? This is faucet.  What is the use of faucets in bitcoin. Is it also a mining business?Please tell me more about faucets.
Answer: concerning the mentioned website i advise you to read this extended discussion about : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341659.0
concerning the faucets systems

Bitcoin faucets are a reward system, in the form of a website or app,
  that dispenses rewards in the form of a satoshi, which is a hundredth
  of a millionth BTC, for visitors to claim in exchange for completing a
  captcha or task as described by the website.

purpose :

To introduce users to bitcoin
To get traffic
To make money

Besides, in the testnet the faucets are worthless bitcoins distributed for test purposes.
Comment: This answer could be improved by summarizing the takeaway from the linked thread.
Answer: Faucets are services which give away free Bitcoin. However the amount of Bitcoin given away by faucets is so small such that the amounts are basically negligible and worthless.
Faucets are not miners nor are they related to miners(although miners could run faucets if they so choose). Rather they serve as websites where the faucet owners can place a large number of advertisements and still get people to visit their site and view those ads. In this way, the site owner can earn a significant amount of money from ad revenue while spending very little by giving away money via the faucet.

Is freebitco.in legit site?


Was the Quidditch Cup always cancelled when Hogwarts hosted the Triwizard Tournament?

Question: We know that in 1994, the Triwizard Tournament was hosted by Hogwarts and the inter-House Quidditch Cup did not take place as a result of this.  My question is, when Hogwarts hosted the Tournament all those other times, did they cancel the Quidditch Cup?
Comment: I'm looking for canon...in the books, movies, or anything JKR said
Answer: This is not canonical.
The Tri-Wizard tournament was established in 1294, and in that time, a tournament would occur every five years, with each house hosting it in order. However, the tournament was closed down due to an issue in 1792. Other than this, we do not know of any other times in which this happened. According to the HP Wiki (which I dare say can be very unreliable at times), the tournament has occurred at least 125 times. For some reason my math appears to be wrong on this one, but let's just go with the Wiki.
125/3 (one school per 5 years - held at Hogwarts every 15 years) = 41~ (times held at Hogwarts)
Now, as the Triwizard tournament only occurs every fifteen years at Hogwarts, it can be assumed that it takes priority over any event at Hogwarts due to the importance of the former.
As you can see, it was only hosted at the school forty one times (if my math is correct), which shows the significance and priority of the tournament. Forty one compared to every single year that the Cup is awarded, is a great deal of importance.
Comment: You are dividing the number of tournaments by the number of years.  It would be 125/3=~42 or 625/15=~42, not 8
Comment: @CHEESE My god. Thank you!
Answer: No specific proof about it in the books.
But, a fair assumption would be: Yes, they did cancel the Quidditch Cup whenever they hosted the Tri-Wizard tournament, if the dates collide. (Else, they'd shift it forward or later, but a sensible option would be to cancel altogether in order to not let the acads suffer)
It's like the Intra- and Inter- sports tournaments at every institute. The schools take the Tri-Wizard tournament very prestigiously.
In addition, having two tournaments in a year takes a huge toll on the academics both costing time and efforts.


Where's the best place to get good staffs?

Question: I was wondering where's the best place to get good staffs for wizards in the game "Realm of the Mad God", because I'm level 20 and I have a T3 staff.  I didn't get any good staffs, and I really want to get one. I tried to sell some good things I got, like a T11 helm, but no one wanted. I tried in a lot of servers, and I didn't get anything good for wizards.
Comment: Trading for items is a good way to get items you want, farm in the godlands until you find a good staff or get a good tradable item. Btw, there is no such thing as a T11 helm.
Comment: No, the helms only go up to T6 I think you mean sword or armour. Also, the best place to trade is in the nexus of USWest.
Comment: that is such a t11 helm, but i just died yesterday trying to sell it at the place of the abyss with 20 guys in there. Well, at last i got 256 fame :P
Answer: Finding good weapons can be tricky.  Most older players have huge stashes so that they don't have to spend time hunting for equipment or trading for it.  If you want an item and don't have it, there are three ways to get it:

Buy it in the Nexus for actual money (Gold).  This isn't a good idea, ever, since Gold should only be spent on the stuff that is Gold-exclusive (character slots, vault chests, and dye/cloths).
Find it through playing.  If you want a decent weapon, you can get it by slaying monsters which drop equipment.  The Godlands (a grey area in the center of the map) have powerful creatures which drop equipment, stat potions, and pet eggs.  In particular, Red Demons and Cyclops Gods (quests that will show up on your minimap) spawn with chests on the ground near them.  T7 weapons - including staves - will often be found there.  Another way to get equipment is to find an Undead Lair, a portal to a dungeon that drops from Ghost Gods when they die.  Killing monsters in here will often drop equipment.
Trade for it.  In RotMG, stat potions are used as currency.  The lowest-value ones are generally agreed to be potions of Speed or Dexterity, so if you have one of these, you can find someone who will trade you a t8 staff for one.  If you don't have any potions (or "pots", as they're called), you can trade equipment - a tier four or five ability item will be worth a tier 8 or 9 weapon.  If you want to find people who are trading their items, check on Realmeye, a site where people buy and sell in-game items.
Answer: You can easily get a tier 6 staff in the godlands by a pink bag. If you want a better staff than tier 6, you can do 18 percent or more damage to a god and sometimes get a soulbound loot which have really good stuff like staffs. You can also run dungeons and get really good stuff.
Answer: You should just go to Oryx, and kill him, and find white bags and find ur weapon.
Answer: First, you can see full list of places "where to get this staff" here: https://www.realmeye.com/wiki/staves (just click on any staff name).
Second, the order for you to progress should be following:

Once you reached level 20 you need to go into godlands: find the biggest group of people in the centre of the map and tp to them. Keep your distance from the gods and kill them (I understood you play wizzard). There you can find t7-t8 staffs, which are much better than t3, in an hour. But be carefull and keep your finger on nexus hotkey if you have never been there before.
Then you can do medium level dungeons where you can get t11 staff, which is more than enough. The easiest to farm is Cemetery. This will take some time, more than one hour, unless you are lucky.
There are dungeons and Oryx castle to get t12 weapon, but don't even think about them once you can perform items 1 and 2 easily.

Third, when you get a good weapon, but not the one you need you can trade it for good staff. This will make it muck faster. I recommend realmeye for this: https://www.realmeye.com/current-offers . There you can see how much people want and how much they give for an item you found, and you can chose appropriate price for yourself. You login and live the offer and people contact you ingame. Or you can contact them if you like someones offer.
Also this guide could be quite useful to put all things together in your head.
Answer: Wait for Oryx's castle, get as close as you can to Oryx, and spam that spell of yours.  You should be surprised by what you can get if you do that enough times.
Comment: I would not recommend doing this. You can easily die in Oryx's Castle even as an 8/8 and you need good DPS to qualify for loot.


How do I keep egg shells from smelling while waiting to add them to composting soil?

Question: I do worm composting for the outside garden. I wanted to add egg shells and some other things that will add to the soil but are hard to break down in the worm composting bin. Since it will be outside I'm okay with it taking a while. What I am not sure of is where and how can I store egg shells so they do not smell until such a time as I can bury them in the garden. Thanks for the tips.
Answer: Don't "store" them at all - just bury them. Or you can bake them (250F/120C), which dries them out so they don't stink, but I only do that when I'm going to break them up small and offer them to chickens for recycling into more eggshells.
Comment: I've baked eggs before, and put them in plant pots for months, and then broken them. They've got an interesting smell, but it's not a really bad smell.
Comment: The Baking is a cool idea. I've been rinsing them. I figure once a week I should have about 15 min to get them buried but I was hoping that there was a simple way to keep any smells out of the kitchen. Thanks I'll give it a shot!
Answer: Are you adding eggs or the shells, only?  Eggs are protein and putting protein/fat into compost will cause very unpleasant smells.  As well as potential Ecoli...wash egg shells and put them through your blender before putting in any compost. Never add protein or poop from us or other carnivores in your compost.  You can add nitrogen to your compost to help decomposers do their work.  Definitely turn your compost with a big pitchfork to get air into the equation. Composting is a great skill for all of us humans to learn, I am so very glad you are learning to do this!  Gotta say we all need to learn a little bit of chemistry to do it properly and you can find cheap or free classes through your cooperative extension service that is funded by a college or University nearby.  Pure gold if you know how to make it...!!
Comment: Egg shells. I edited for clarity. This is not typical composting I'm working with here. I do worm composting because the Townhome HOA board would never fly with regular composting. Though I've done it pretty successfully in the past. Was nice and hot. I never add protein to my compost so no worries there. Good general info though. Thanks


How much does it cost to buy a patent to protect your invention if you are a civilian, a public member?

Question: I mean by public a person, a civilan acting on his or her private time, a user of the web. I am really not aware if I can enter the building being an homeless in San Jose, Ca, USA. I follow the Law at all time; but I am not a member of any group or any companies.
Comment: I pass in front of it every day...
Comment: What building are you referring to in your question?
Comment: It would help if you could take another pass on this question.  I'm not completely sure what you are asking when you say "buy a patent" (I assume you mean "file a patent") although @DonQuiKong's answer is good, high-level advice.  Be aware, the grant of the patent is what you'd ultimately need.  If it's a design patent, this will be simple, inexpensive and quick.  If it's a utility patent, it will take a few years to find out whether you receive a grant, unless you pay for expedited review.  You also want to explore international filing, although that can get very expensive.
Answer: A few hundred dollars at first, around 5-8 thousand if you want a patent attorney.
Later the maintenance fees go up, but you can always abandon the patent / application.
Comment: Adding to DonQuiKong, you probably want to look for a solo practitioner as opposed to a firm, for budgetary reasons (less overhead = lower rates.)  In my experience, there are many such attorneys, and they will consult with you at no charge.  Also, flat rates are often offered and probably a good idea.


Teenage withdrawal into iPod

Question: We live an hour away from my daughter's school. She takes a train to get to school. Last year (our 1st year here) she made friendships at school but wasn't invited to anyone's home. Nobody called her. (There are no girls in our neighborhood) She didn't invite anyone to come because she said they'd be bored here. Instead, she became addicted to her iPod. She doesn't look at anything indecent or connect to any bad websites. We have filters on. But we are obviously concerned as to how we can get her to stretch herself to want to invite girls over, and separate her from he iPod.
Comment: Do not trust the filter.  Not saying she _is_ looking at anything indecent, but where there is a will there is a way
Answer: When I was a pre-teen, it was long before iPods, but my mother was concerned about me not having friends and spending way too much time on the computer.  Instead of banning me from the computer, she enrolled me in a theater class, which I ended up loving.  It opened up a new world to me, and I made lasting friendships there.
The lesson I've taken from that as a parent now myself is that it's better to provide positive alternatives than just to take something away. Are there any groups your daughter could participate in that are appropriate to her age and interests?
My own kids are 6 and 8 right now, and it drives me crazy when they want to play games on our phones... but I take comfort in the fact that they also like to draw, play music, build with blocks and play outdoors.
Answer: Try installing a timer on the filter. Many filters offer options where you can shut down specific features, apps or the web at a certain time. Obviously, the only way to rid her of the addiction is to stop it. It may be a bit harsh to just go cold turkey, but I think limiting her usage is a must. Be strong!
Answer: There's no necessarily easy answer to this.

We live an hour away from my daughter's school. She takes a train to get to school.

Now bearing in mind just how far away she is, even if there's a way of getting a cheaper rate as a student etc- it's not a "quick trip" or necessarily cheap for her or her friends to get either one way or the other- even if money isn't a problem, as there's a time investment too. It could be that, not knowing what ages we're talking here- that their parents may not be comfortable with them travelling that distance alone either.

Last year (our 1st year here) she made friendships at school but wasn't invited to anyone's home. Nobody called her.

Some kids don't make friends easily, or they won't mention it to their parents- have you discussed this with her at all or gotten any hints from her as to if this is actually the case? Not calling isn't necessarily a bad thing either, if she has access to a computer or similar, they may communicate by other means.

She didn't invite anyone to come because she said they'd be bored here.

Could it be that she's right? Look at her and what there is that interests her nearby- depending on her interests, it could be there really is nothing, which in turn means her friends would equally be bored with the "nothing". Now don't get me wrong, I was part of a generation/group of kids that could've found entertainment in an empty field, but that's not the point.
It may be worth looking at what's available locally or even a distance away and seeing if there's a way of making "A" and "B" meet- suggest that perhaps she stays over at a friends place sometime, or offer to take her and a friend somewhere (i.e if there's a town or city nearby, so make a nice day out of it). I live out in the proverbial "sticks" myself, but even so, it doesn't take more than half an hours drive at the most to get to a cinema, some takeaway and restaurants, so see if this is an option. You can even drop them off there and pick them up later on so they can enjoy the day without "the parents" bumming their mood!

Instead, she became addicted to her iPod.

I'm going to say this once- there's a lot worse things to be addicted to. Assuming that she's only using it to listen to music or watch the odd video, there really is much, much worse.

She doesn't look at anything indecent or connect to any bad websites.

Believe me, if she wanted to, there's ways to if she knows how. Just going to put that one out there.

But we are obviously concerned as to how we can get her to stretch herself to want to invite girls over, and separate her from he iPod.

The thing is, this is her first year. If she hasn't made friends that despite all I've said above she's still not willing to commit to making an effort or shows promise of wanting to see them (or vice versa) then there's only so much you can do. See how things go.
Parent's pressuring their kids into doing things doesn't always go so well- bear that in mind. As a kid, having someone push me into "making friends" is one of the more absurd things you can do- you can't "make" friends if the people you see around you aren't people you want to get on with.
What interests does she have? Does she like reading? Playing games? Computers? Sports? Drama? Acting? There's somewhere for everyone that likes any of these things to go and meet new people- look around, check on the internet, see if there's a convention, event, meetup opportunity or store somewhere that hosts something she might be interested in. Even if she just goes once and doesn't like it, it's an effort made.

Teenage withdrawal into iPod


svg 2 dxf conversion

Question: I would like to know where I can find a reliable tool/library for conversion of svg to dxf. In between formats are also allowed as long as the dxf output is an exact replica of the svg. So that means conversion of the paths (and in particular bezier curves and arcs). I've looked at the svg2dxf export in inkscape but that's cutting corners (literally as that it draws straight lines between some curved endpoints). A library should be preferable in java, perl or python as I'm most familiar with these languages. I also would be willing to spend a small amount for a commercial product. I've done some googling but strange enough the majority of entries are over 5 years old. I'm also interested in a more readable specification of the dxf as the one published on the autocad website is not very verbose.
Answer: The company I work for has a library for Windows that supports many vector formats, including SVG and DXF.
Although the vector DLLs are mainly for C/C++, it should be easy to call them from other languages like Java, as shown in this forum post:
HOWTO: Call a LEADTOOLS API Function from Java
The code to load an SVG file and save it as DXF looks like this:
<code>VECTORHANDLE LeadVector = { 0 };
L_VecLoadFile("inputFile.svg", &LeadVector, NULL, NULL);
L_VecSaveFile("outputFile.dxf", &LeadVector, FILE_DXF, NULL);
L_VecFree(&LeadVector);
</code>
There's a free evaluation edition you can try to see if the resulting DXF preserves the vector objects the way you need. You can obtain the evaluation from this page.

svg 2 dxf conversion


Import Multi-value Custom Data Fails for Household Contact Type

Question: The "Import Multi-value Custom Data" fails when importing data into a multi-value custom field set that applies to only a Household contact type or Household sub-types. When the field set was change to "All Contacts" the import works. I didn't test it with multi-value custom field sets restricted to "Individual" or "Organization" contact types. It may fail with these also.
The Import Errors file show "Invalid value for field(s) : field ID; ; field ID; ; field ID; field ID" as the reason for the error when four fields are imported.
We use CiviCRM for WordPress.
To duplicate this setup a simple multi-value custom field set restricted to Households. Then try to import data into it.
Answer: I think this might be the relevant JIRA issue
https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-18959


Why don't phagocytes eliminate mutualistic foregin organisms residing in our body?

Question: Many organisms residing in our body and have a symbiotic mutualistic relationship with our body e.g. organisms in our small intestines. How come our body does not activate an immune response against them? Is it that the organisms have self antigens, or do the immune cells have no antibodies for these organisms? Also, how come our immune system is able to respond to these same organisms if they cause an infection in our body? E.g. Entamoeba histolytica causing amoebic dysentery.
Answer: Molecular context is important here. E.coli in your colon is OK with the body, it is taken up by phagocytes as part of normal "surveillance". Your immune system will learn and gain "tolerence" to these mutualistic bacteria as long as they are in the correct environment.
If that same E.coli is a pathogenic strain or finds a way into the blood stream (sepsis), your body will recognize that it does not belong and mount a immune response. There are different classes of antibodies with different properties including where they are predominantly found. For instance IgE is found in mucosa but not in serum.
On top of that there are the 'Danger/Pathogen associated molecular patterns' (DAMPs or PAMPs). Cells can 'sense' general molecular patterns such as LPS, unmethylated CpG DNA, double stranded RNA through a class of molecules called Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Different TLRs are found in different cells or cell surfaces and they are the 'first line' response against inappropriate bacteria or viruses.
Once the TLRs are activated the cells will produce 'Danger Signals' called cytokines which initiates an immune response. In the absence of 'Danger Signals' present in the microenvironment, our immune system won't really begin mounting an immune response but just 'surveys'.
In this 'danger' context, you get robust phagocytic response.
If you'd like to learn more about this Mucosal Immunology is what the topic is called. All in all, the vast majority of our immune system is mucosal, it's just less studied relative to humoral immunity since it's harder to study.
Comment: So does this mean that there are certain LPS along with double stranded RNA and unmethylated CpG DNA that are displayed by bacteria (or other flora in the body) when they become pathogenic? These molecules are recognised by immune cells which results in an immune response. Is this what you mean to say?
Comment: @Tamur No, these are very broad molecular patterns, almost all bacteria will have them as normal molecules, so both pathogenic and non-pathogenic. What they do do is detect when bacteria is in an inappropriate place in the body, like the blood, muscle tissues, lymphatic system etc... TLRs are expressed in many cells, the most important being epithelial (skin) cells. So the skin is an immune organ. TLRs are not restricted to blood immune cells.