How can I change the width of main column in 2 column layout in Magento 2

Question: I want to have a 2 column layout and I want to add some margin on the left to the main column and reduce it's width. And I want this feature only on selected pages so I made a custom layout for that, please help me to achieve this goal.
Answer: You can add this style in your custom css file.

.page-layout-2columns-left .column.main{width:80%;}
Answer: Simply edit your CSS file in skin>frontend>YourTheme>YourTheme>css>styles.css
Every page has its own unique class so in CSS you can style only specific pages by writing style like:
<code>.category-myProducts .class-name-of-my-column
{
   width:400px;
}
</code>


Transfer of funds

Question: My wife and I have been green card holders since Sept 2012.
While we have very small income in India we hold substantial shares gifted by parents, home and some landed property.
I have my aged mother living in India who is an Indian citizen.
I understand sale of shares/mutual funds are taxed in US (though not taxed in India as long term capital gains)
What would be the best legal option to transfer money from sale of shares?
If my wife gifts the shares to my mother and she sells it. can she gift a part/whole of the proceeds to my US account without  attracting tax?
Is this a good solution or is there any other alternative.
Basically US should not claim tax as the  money was not transferred from US but earned in India prior to holding green card.
Answer: It would be better for you to sell yourself and pay capital gains tax than to transfer to your parents and pay the gift tax.
Also, sham transfer (you transfer to your mother only so that she could sell and transfer back to you without you paying taxes) will be probably categorized as tax evasion, which is a criminal offense that could lead to your deportation.
What the US should or should not claim you can take to your congressman, but the fact is that the US does claim tax on capital gains even if you bought the asset before becoming US tax resident, and that's the current law.

Transfer of funds


Can a liquor be both a vodka and whisky? What's the difference?

Question: Both whisky and vodka can be made from fermented grains. So is it just a marketing decision which to call it? Generally speaking vodka is clear, odorless and tasteless. And whisky is a brown colour and has more of a bite. Of course there's exceptions.
Answer: Can a liquor be both a vodka and whisky? What's the difference?
The short answer is yes.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about what constitutes a liquor.

Liquor (also hard liquor, hard alcohol, distilled alcohol, fire water, or spirit water) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, or vegetables that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. The distillation process purifies the liquid and removes diluting components like water, for the purpose of increasing its proportion of alcohol content (commonly expressed as alcohol by volume, ABV).1 As liquors contain significantly more alcohol than other alcoholic drinks, they are considered "harder" – in North America, the term hard liquor is used to distinguish distilled alcoholic drinks from non-distilled ones, whereas the term spirits is used in the UK. Brandy is a liquor produced by the distillation of wine, and has an ABV of over 35%. Other examples of liquors include vodka, baijiu, shōchū, soju, gin, rum, tequila, mezcal, and whisky. (Also see list of alcoholic drinks, and liquors by national origin.)
The term does not include alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, mead, sake, huangjiu or cider, as they are fermented, not distilled. These all have a relatively low alcohol content, typically less than 15%. Nor does it include wine based products fortified with spirits, such as port, sherry or vermouth.
There is no evidence for a health benefit for liquor at any level of consumption. Compared to other types of alcohol, excess consumption of liquor is more strongly associated with harmful health effects.

The mixing of mash ingredients that would traditionally constitute two different type of liquors would still be considered a liquor as long as it is properly distilled after fermentation has occurred.
The mixing of two different types of liquors use still constitute a liquor by principle, such as vodka and whiskey, but would in general be called a cocktail.
However a drink mixed with a liquor and another alcoholic beverage that is simply fermented and not distilled is no longer a liquor but a cocktail
Comment: Yes, you can pour vodka and whiskey into the same glass. But that concoction would not generally be considered "a liquor", it's a mix of two different liquors. This seems like suggesting an animal can be both a dog and a cat, if you were to sew the two together.
Comment: that being said, the dog is, after eating a cat, a dog and cat at the same time. Isn't it?
Comment: I'm not sure this answer gets what the question is about. Yes both vodka and whiskey are liquors. The question asked whether something can be considered both vodka and whiskey at the same time. While formally whiskey might be un-aged, I think the vast majority of people think of whiskey as aged in wood with the distinct flavor that imparts.
Answer: Interestingly, both names, "whisky" and "vodka," are derivatives of the word for "water" in their respective 'languages of origin'.
"Whisky" (or uisge beath in Scottish Gaelic) means "Water of Life" whereas "vodka" (водка in Russian) means "little water" - both are, in a way, 'terms of endearment'.
So, one might argue that the major difference between the two is simply a matter of language - but I wouldn't necessarily recommend arguing that in a Whisky bar in the Highlands of Scotland, or an equivalent, vodka-supplying establishment in Rural Russia!
Answer: There is no general definition of what a whisky is.
There are of course special kinds of whisky (Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Kentucky Straight Bourbon, etc.) which are very well defined, but the simple word "whisky" can, unfortunatelly, be pretty much everything. There are "whiskies" from india, for example, that are distilled from molasses. This kind of spirit is usually called rum in other countries.
So, the question if something can be a whisky and vodka at the same time, can definitely be answered with yes.
If you look into grain destillated spirit (in scotland, for example), there is grain whisky. It is made from other grains than malted barley (but can contain this as well, but it's more expensive) and is usually distilled in a coloumn still. This is pretty much the same production method as a grain made vodka. And when you mature it in a cask for 3 years, you could either call it a grain whisky, or a cask aged vodka.
Answer: In general terms, vodka is almost pure alcohol and water, with very little inherent flavour.
Whisky starts out the same way, but the final product has a very distinctive flavour (or rather many distinctive flavours, depending upon the maker).
Some of the flavour comes from the fermented malted grain (the equivalent of beer), which is often infused with peat or other smoke.
But most of the flavour is absorbed from the burnt wood of the oak barrels in which it is aged for years.
Twelve year old scotch whisky literally is left to sit in the barrel for twelve years before being bottled.
(Once bottled, it no longer ages.)
Similarly, brandy is made from fermented fruit (the equivalent of wine), and aged in oak barrels.
Rum is made from fermented molasses, and often flavoured with spices during the aging process.
Almost every kind of liquor starts out as something very similar to vodka.
It's the flavour that develops during aging that distinguishes them.
That's why, where taxes are low or non-existent, vodka is very cheap, while whisky is still relatively expensive.
Answer: You could distill a fermented grain mash multiple times in a still and filter it, getting something that could be called vodka (distilled multiple times and filtered) and whisky (distilled in a still). If you then age it in barrels, it's probably legally both - an aged vodka and a very clear whisky.
Answer:
This is probably the closest to what you're looking.
Outside of 'clear' vodkas, there's a whole huge range of flavored vodkas that are given a wild variety of flavor through additions, infusions and other processes - next to more common tastes like cherry, lemon, chestnut or apple, you'll find bread vodka, pepper vodka, horseradish, ginger, chili, and many, many more. Zubrowka Palona is one with smoky whisky flavor - it was vodka aged in the same conditions as whisky, in charred oak barrels. The manufacturer still markets it as a flavored vodka, but at this point there's practically nothing separating it from whisky. And there's nothing that says this process can't be used to flavor vodkas. In the end - you can say every whisky is just a specific kind of flavored vodka.


Archive page of post showing up ahead of actual post in google

Question: Not exactly sure why the main page of my website which shows the latest post is being shown first when searching for post I made. The main page of my website shows up with the seo description showing the title of the post that I am searching for. Obviously this looks stupid, because the post title only shows up in the description and not in the seo title. How can I stop google from showing my archive page when searching for post.
Answer: I am not exactly sure I am following you so I will repeat what I think I understand.
You have a blog home page that list recent post snippets using the post titles and some text. When you search tor the title of a particular post, the home page is listed in the search engine result page (SERP) first.
The scenario that comes to mind is this.
Your post has your expected title in the title tag. You may have been prompted for a description that appears in the description meta-tag. Your home page lists the posts using the post title in an header tag perhaps H1 or H2 along with the description you were prompted for or a snippet from the first paragraph of the post. This may not be the exact scenario, but close.
This would not be uncommon for a blog.
I would be looking at the title tag of the home page to make sure that it is less than 70 characters and perhaps closer to 55 or 60. Make sure it is substantial and not a short title.
I would make sure that you have a description meta-tag for your home page that is less than 160 character perhaps about up to 140 or so.
I would make sure your home page has only one H1 tag that belongs to the home page.
I would make sure that your your blog snippets are not using a header tag for the post titles. It is better that it is a link. If it is a header tag, make sure it is H2 and not H1.
Based upon your description, I suspect that Google is not picking up the title/description combination of the home page. It may be seeing a valid title and using it - I am not sure. However, it does sound like Google is not picking up your description meta-tag and is picking up the first header tag according to priority - H1, H2, H3, etc.
Comment: It sounds to me like the `archive page` is a list of the latest posts, but not the home page. Although I would imagine that what you describes would work. Maybe he could forbid indexing of the `archive page` if that's not the home page.
Comment: Yes. You are right - archive page and not home page. However, the archive page is likely a valuable landing page and should be indexed. Block only if it becomes necessary. Substitute my use of home page for archive page and examine the elements to see what you can fix. Likely there are templates that govern how pages are built and this should be looked into.
Comment: My archive page is my home page, the home page lands on all recent post. When I search in google using the post title, i see :
Site name - Tag line, then in description i shows the post title mixed in with a description...this looks awful, Id rather have Post title- Sit Name, show up in the search before that ugly archive page/home page
Comment: The biggest problem is that we are trying to answer a question in an information vacuum. A domain name and sample query string used in Google would help us to understand what is going. I still say pay attention to the HTML elements of the home/archive page. Search engines are very predictable with what they use, when, why, and how to create the SERPs. Most blog software use templates. You likely would be able to edit the templates to obtain the desired result.
Answer: The home page of a website generally ranks higher than most other pages, especially new pages which don't have many incoming links and are newly indexed.
Google, and presumably other search engines, dynamically generate titles and descriptions based on the query. The fact that your homepage, which features posts in the traditional blog style (reverse chronological order) is ranking better than a (presumably) new post itself probably isn't worth worrying about.
Has it impacted your ranking on searches related to what you'd like your home page to rank for?
If it hasn't (or if you haven't noticed a drop in traffic/leads), find something else to worry about.


Shehechiyanu at Bris

Question: Why is it that some make a Shehechiyanu at a Bris and some don't? And an identification of those who do and do not would be appreciated.
Answer: Sefardim make a Shecheyanu at a bris. This is also the prevailing custom among Ashkenazim (and everyone else) in Israel.
Background:

Tosafot (Sukkah 46a, ד"ה העושה) says that we don't make a shecheyanu on a bris, since it is not mentioned as one of the berachot for milah in massechet Menachot. Reason - only make Shehecheyanu on a mitzvah that has simcha (joy) associated with it. Ran also agrees, for different reasons.
Rambam (Berachot 11:9): Make shehecheyanu on a brit milah., even though it is not תדיר and doesn't happen all the time.
Ruling: Shulchan Aruch (YD 265:7) says that you say shecheyanu at a bris, Rema there says that we don't. The Vilna Gaon rules that you do say it.

Also see this article on the topic, as well as the footnotes here.
Comment: It appears the Rema does give a case where he agrees the father does say a Shehechiyanu. He quotes a Maharil that if the child is a firstborn who must be redeemed, the father says shehecheyanu at the bris. The Shach (SK 17) says that the Rema misunderstood the Maharil, and says we don't say Shehechaynu at all.
Comment: I haven't looked at all the sources, but Tosafot Sukkah 46A says that we only make Shehecheyanu on a mitzva that has simcha associated with it, and therefore don't say Shehecheyanu by a bris. How does that fit with the statement in the Talmud (Megilah 16B) that Sasson (joy) [Ester 8:16] refers to Milah?
Comment: The footnotes bring up some questions -- 1. why is there a distinction between E"Y and Chu"L in terms of shehechiyanu 2. Why is this distinction not in play for any other mitzvah's shehechyanu 3. Why would the minhag be in E"Y and Syria and Egypt if the minhag is at all related to actually being in E"Y?

Shehechiyanu at Bris


What does the "Edit top 200 Rows" SSMS option actually do?

Question: I am new the SQL Server DBA role. I have always been the developer, but due to being the only one at my company with moderate SQL Experience, the role has fallen onto my plate. And today I came face to face with a question I did not have an answer for.
I am familiar with the option in SSMS to "Edit top 200 Rows" for a table, but I never understood the HOW of it. I ask this question because a Contractor who's been working on our system since before I took over was complaining of slow query results. The query he had written pulls in data over a large time period with a final result set in the ballpark of 800,000 rows. A sizable chunk of data.
What surprised me more was that said query took over 9 minutes to run, which did not seem correct to me. I asked him to send me the query. I took his query and ran it and it returned for me in 28 seconds. A sizeable difference compared to the over 9 minutes it took him. We both ran the query directly on the server so I knew that was not the case. I then asked him to show me how he ran it. He then opened up the table with the "edit top 200 rows" option, backspaced the TOP 200, and added his conditionals after the FROM and proceeded to execute it. I told him that was his issue there. He told me it should not be. Now I know that this is a "no no" for large data sets, but I lacked the knowledge to explain why.
I was hoping for a little help from the community here. What does the "Edit Top # Rows" option actually do?
Answer: The two types of query here use different grids.

You selecting the data (presumably in Query Analyzer) shows a grid that is optimized for display.
Him selecting the data with "edit top xxx rows" displays a grid that is optimized for editing directly in the grid.  This gives it more overhead and will make it slower.


Why my RO faucet wouldn't stop leaking even after I'd purchased a brand new one?

Question: I have a Whirlpool "UltraEase" RO filtration system (Model number: WHAROS5) underneath my kitchen sink for a while. And it was time to change the pre and post-filters. So I purchased pre and post-filters from Lowes. The filters on this model RO system have a valve on them so I don't have to shut off the water supply when to change out those filters. But ever since I replaced the pre and post-filters. There's a small leak underneath the kitchen sink. Initially, I couldn't find the leak. So I purchased a brand new RO faucet. Even with the new RO faucet and parts, I still get a small leak near the adapter (see picture). I've then added Teflon tape to where the adapter and the blue tube join. But the system is still leaking at where the red arrow points to in the picture. How can I stop this leak?
Answer: You may have to turn the water off pull the tubing and trim 1/4" off the end if you have already tried pushing the tube in.
To release the tube press in on the ring and the tube usually pulls right out.
If it feels stuck push in on the ring while pushing in on the tubing then pulling out.
Sometimes a divot forms in the tube and if it won't seat and seal trimming 1/4" usually fixes the problem.
Comment: Is it the best practice to empty the tank and flush the tubes each tome time I replace the RO membrane or the pre/post filters?
Comment: The systems I have installed had auto flush this is very water intensive because after back washing the membranes the system is flushed if you do not auto flush and are doing it manually that is a lot of ware and tear on the fittings are you testing with Meg ohms per centimeter ? Or pressure across the membrane? If doing it by restive you should be able to trust your meter but if by pressure I would want to dump the tank depending on the flush sequence, usually filtered water is used to backwash or the systems I have worked on that is dumped then forward flow no need to dump this way.


Am I allowed to test and research with Graphene

Question: I am a student and wanted to do some research on graphene on how to mass produce it and I was wondering before starting my project on the wondrous material. So my question is, Is this a free patent? Am I allowed to test graphene?
Comment: Could you make a reference to which patent you are talking about.
Answer: Nobody can stop you from playing with Graphene-- it is in your pencil. Graphene wasn't invented, it was discovered.
Means of producing graphene (such as in sheets) and ways to use it are being patented.
So you can do experiments on it and ways to produce it. If you want to develop and commercialize your own way to produce or use it, then you need to consider a strategy for dealing with the IP. I won't advise you on those legal issues, but here is one nice reference:
http://www.neustel.com/Patent-Infringement/How-To-Avoid-Patent-Infringement.aspx
Comment: Graphene was first isolated in 2004, it is graphite (a mineral with a similar chemical makeup) that is used in pencils. The other part of your answer - means of producing - is correct but would benefit from examples. Such an example is US20130315814.
Answer: Further to this, experimental use of patented inventions does not generally constitute infringement under the doctrine of experimental use. It is part of the quid pro quo bargain of patent systems.


Enjoining the good and forbidding evil vs. human rights

Question: Does the enjoining the good and forbidding evil violate the very basic human rights of freedom to life if enjoining the good and forbidding evil compromises the dignity of someone who fails to carry out an obligatory act or perpetrates a prohibited act, and humiliates him before the people? If not, please provide reasons based on Quran/Hadith.
Comment: The modern, secular notion of human rights is not a part of shariah; it'd be surprising if there were no conflicts, although it's hard to tell whether what you have in mind would constitute one. Can you make your question more concrete?
Comment: @G.Bach as you said, the humans rights based on our Western values have many conflicts with the Sharia laws. Just to provide you with a point of contact, what I have in mind as conflicts are freedom of speech, freedom to practice/leave any religion you want without fears of violence, equality for women, and equality for minorities including homosexuals. My background is to understand as a history student the reasons according to Quran/Sunnah on which historical or current religious or political figures in the Islamic world base their actions and policies. I needed a general answer for myself.
Answer: It's important to note here that enjoining that which is good and forbidding that which is evil is not the same as being judgemental.

Allah does not like the public mention of evil except by one who has been wronged. And ever is Allah Hearing and Knowing.
If [instead] you show [some] good or conceal it or pardon an offense - indeed, Allah is ever Pardoning and Competent.
[An-Nisa' 148-149]

If someone did (allegedly) do anything evil, only those who had actually been wronged by them have any real grounds to drag them through the mud for it (although it's still better to forgive in that case).
However, if I tell you that there is great blessing if you give in charity, seeking nothing but the reward of Allah rather than to be seen of men, that is enjoining that which is good. If I tell you that harming others or taking their property without just cause is bad, that is forbidding that which is evil. Whether you had done any of the evil I'm forbidding or any of the good I'm enjoining is irrelevant.
In other words, enjoining that which is good and forbidding that which is evil is predominantly a matter of preaching and there isn't necessarily any element of public shaming in it, although it may also involve acting (e.g. stopping or speaking against an evil in progress) which needs only be as public as the circumstances necessitate: Judging and punishing a wrong after the fact, be that by public shaming or other means, is entirely tangential.
Comment: Thanks for your explanatory answer! It really helped me. :-)
Answer: Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas:

A man was injured during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah
(saws); he then had a sexual dream, and he was advised to wash and
he washed himself. Consequently he died. When this was reported to the
Messenger of Allah (saws) he said: They killed him; may Allah kill
them! Is not inquiry the cure of ignorance? [1]
عَبْدَ اللَّهِ بْنَ عَبَّاسٍ، قَالَ أَصَابَ رَجُلاً جُرْحٌ فِي عَهْدِ
رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ثُمَّ احْتَلَمَ فَأُمِرَ
بِالاِغْتِسَالِ فَاغْتَسَلَ فَمَاتَ فَبَلَغَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله
عليه وسلم فَقَالَ  " قَتَلُوهُ قَتَلَهُمُ اللَّهُ أَلَمْ يَكُنْ
شِفَاءُ الْعِيِّ السُّؤَالَ "

This hadeeth, showing the Prophet's great displeasure, if not anger, at the companions implementing 'enjoining the good and forbidding evil' without regard, clearly states that the ability of one to act on one's opinion of 'amar maaruf and nahyil munkar' is not absolute, but rather subject to limits.
This same hadeeth also suggets that these limits are indeed the 'higher purposes/obejctives' captured within the concept of Maqasid al-Shariah: in the case of the above hadeeth, the preservation of life.
We can also see these considerations in action in other instances in the hadeeth and sunnah. This includes the Prophets decisions in regards the treaty of Hudaybiyah [2] where the companions saw the 'Umrah to Mecca as the right thing to do (mandated, among others, by the Oath/Pledge of Ridwan [3]), and for some, at all costs (a common approach towards 'amar al-maaruf'), and yet the Prophet refrained.
This act helped secure peace for the Muslims, political power for the Prophet himself as well as the city-state of Medina, brought even more people towards Islam, and led to more peace treatises for the muslims. These aims and objectives are all captured across the several 'higher objectives' of the Maqasid al-Shari'ah. Indeed, for many sahabah [4],  Allah later described this treaty as successful, and hence the correctness of the approach per se, by the verse in Al-Fath:1:

إِنَّا فَتَحۡنَا لَكَ فَتۡحً۬ا مُّبِينً۬ا (١)
Truly We have granted thee a manifest victory (1)

Considering the above, it is clear that the right to enjoin join good and forbid evil is not absolute, but rather subject to considerations of the higher objectives of the Maqasid al-Shari'ah, which itself are consistent with the rights of all mankind.
References:
[1] Sunan Abi Dawud. Book of Purification (Kitab Al-Taharah)/كتاب الطهارة: hadeeth 337, at https://sunnah.com/abudawud/1/337, accessed 02/05/2020
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hudaybiyyah
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_the_Tree
[4] in the Tafseer Ibn Katheer:

Abdullah bin Masud and other Companions said, "You consider the
conquering of Makkah to be Al-Fath (the victory), while to us, Al-Fath
is the treaty conducted at Al-Hudaybiyyah.'' Jabir (bin Abdullah)
said, "We only considered Al-Fath to be the day of Hudaybiyyah!''
Al-Bukhari recorded that Al-Bara' (bin Azib) said, "You consider
Al-Fath to be the conquest of Makkah, which was indeed a victory.
However, we consider Al-Fath to be the pledge of Ar-Ridwan on the Day
of Al-Hudaybiyyah".


How is the Outlet flow rate in a water system controlled?

Question: The Hardy Cross method for analysis of fluid systems assumes that in inlet flows and outlet flows for the system are known. However, when one constructs such a system in real life, how do we ensure that the flow entering and exiting the system will be exactly equal to the parameters set initially? e.g. if the system is connected to a water tank for input, and has a loop with 3 outlets, and we assume that the input water flow is 300 l/s and the outlet flows are 100 l/s each. We decide all lengths and diameters as part of stating the initial condition to apply the Hardy Cross equation, and the method tells us what the flow rates will be based on the analysis. How do I know that the system will obey these parameters, and that the flow rates will match the initial assumptions I made.
Answer: In addition to the points made by @mart: the Hardy Cross method is a fixed algorithm.  Therefore, it can be implemented in a parametric spreadsheet with the inlet and outlet flow rates as parameters set in the top couple of rows, or in an Octave or MATLAB script with the inlet and outlet flow rates as global variables with values set in the first few lines.  That way, if you're not sure what the inlet and outlet flow rates will be, you can try out lots of different values for them quickly and easily.
However, looking at it this way raises a tricky foundational issue... An iteration of the Hardy Cross method is an approximation to an iteration of the full multivariate Newton-Raphson method.  Hardy Cross introduced the approximation in the 1930s, when electronic computers were not available, because implementing the full multivariate Newton-Raphson method with pen and paper is a huge hassle.  If you've got access to modern electronic computers (especially ones on which the full multivariate Newton-Raphson method comes ready-implemented in widely available, open-source and therefore amenable to inspection and review, library functions), why (other than in purely pedagogic contexts) would you be using the Hardy Cross method at all, rather than the full multivariate Newton-Raphson method?
Answer: You design the system for a demand that it should meet, 3x 100l/s in your example. If the demand is higher, the sytem will likely fail to deliver the actual demand. If the demand is lower, no problem.
On the network side, you know the pressure you want to deliver the water at. You could supply valves at the tap that deliver only (say) 100l/s at 4 bar, but in most cases  actual water flow has to be managed on the consumer side and there are countless ways to do that:

manually turning down the tap (if the consumer is a shower or something like that)
If the consumer needs a constand water flow, they can use a combination of pressure regulator, simple flow meter and manual valve.


Spruce for Hugelkultur?

Question: I have just learned about hugelkultur and can't seem to find out whether or not spruce trees are good to use for these types of raised beds. It's nearly the only type of tree that grows in my area. Thanks!
Answer: I know that Pine is supposed to have anti fungal qualities so some say to not use it. I imagine if you see spruce taking a long time to decompose you may wish to avoid it.
Comment: Alright, I'll check it out. Thanks!
Answer: In order to break down the spruce logs you're going to want to throw some mushrooms you found under spruce trees (like Phoenix Oysters, or Wine Caps) in it to decompose it quicker, because it could take a long time to start decomposing it due to the lack of proper decomposes available.
You may also want to try to attract ants with sugar, because the wood would be a great food source for them.

Spruce for Hugelkultur?


Contains equivalent in segmentation lists

Question: Implements rules for segmentation lists. I have a requirement that forces me to use the contains method on a string. Unfortunately, this feature is not supported. Has anyone managed to make an equivalent of this method?
Answer: The xConnect search supports only a specific subset of queryable conditions, and it is unlikely that a workaround exists.
Interestingly, the supported search method documentation for 10.0 says that partial text search is not supported when using Azure Search provider, which implies that it is supported with Solr, but the code sample doesn't make any sense:
client.Contacts.Where(c => c.TextMatch("Mar"))

(you can ask sitecore support whether it is a typo or not btw)
And you could try solving this in a different way, for example by evaluating the facet value when it is saved using calculated facets.
Using calculated facets you can check if a facet property contains a predefined string (using normal .Contains() method) and save the result to a new bool facet property, and check that property in the segment instead.
Answer: You can achieve this by using string data type for the Comparison variable instead of StringOperationType.

and in Sitecore, for the Comparison variable, you can create a custom multilist item folder at path /sitecore/system/Settings/Rules/Definitions

and then refer this to rule definition item:
Comment: The problem is that the contains function is not supported by indexes and an error occurs when trying to use it. That's why I asked this question.


Currencies of Modern Medieval Nations

Question: My world is in the future (very far, ~2480), but due to an energy crisis, the global economy has failed and has resulted in a sort of "medievalization" of the current nations. Given that present time has large areas that have a common currency, would these regions maintain a common currency, or would new currencies develop for each region?
Comment: The premise is not at all clear. What do you mean by *"medievalization"*? A return to medieval, that is, pre-Renaissance, technology is simply not possible -- there is no way for humanity as a whole to forget thermodynamics and Newtonian mechanics. A return to medieval social structure, while still far-fetched, is much more believable. If we are to take the question at face value, we already have an almost perfect historical example: when the western Roman empire fell, long-distance trade stopped abruptly and each and every local ruler struck their own coins.
Comment: I am thinking about the economic collapse in the 1930's, on the Canadian prairies, where dust storms combined with an economic collapse forced a return to 'horse and buggy' technology. The currency survived, however economic theories and economic models changed. We had the same currency, but we THOUGHT differently about it.
Comment: Recommended watching: The series on [the history of money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nZkP2b-4vo) on Extra History.
Comment: Welcome to Worldbuilding. I think your question has been asked before, have you checked out the answer here: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79559/post-apocalypse-currency
Comment: I would suggest changing the title, and removing 'post-apocalyptic' from it. An energy crisis is NOT 'post-apocalyptic' in the normal sense. It could be considered as a normal economic cycle, and an inevitable natural result of evolutionary economic trends. In that respect, the change would be slow and evolutionary, not sudden and catastrophic. The currency would have a long time to adjust. In this vein, there are historical precedents that could be a factual basis for an answer.
Answer: Currency has always evolved throughout history.
The currency today LOOKS like the currency of the early 1800's, but it has  become a 'spreadsheet' currency (most currency today is virtual, it is not in real, physical printed money). It has become debt-based, instead of cash-only. It has become a means of making more money in its own right (interest, for example, on money in bank accounts). It's value is now determined by it's relation to other currencies. Money is exchanged for another currency for profit. It's value is now determined by factors other than it's own physical existence. International banking is now more important to many economies than international trade.
I would suggest that history (the economic collapse of the 'dirty thirties') indicates that actual hard physical currency would once again dominate, over spreadsheet bank-balance currency. The economic model would change. The model would be based on 'present value' instead of 'future potential value'. It would be cash only, 'In God we trust, all others pay cash'. The plastic credit card economy would completely collapse. I can imagine everyone would go bankrupt, all loans and paper money (mortgages, stocks, bonds, bank accounts) would disappear. Huge sums of 'artificial' money would just vaporize. It would be a total reset back to a cash economy from a cashless economy.
But the actual cash, the physical currency, would still continue. People would still trade hard cash for goods, and then exchange that hard cash for other goods. The currency would still have 'value', but it would be real value, not virtual value.
It would be a return to the concept of currency in medieval times - the rich don't have bank accounts, or investments, or stocks, or bonds, they have a roomful of physical currency. 'Investments' would be in tangible products - land ownership, boats, means of production, animals - not money. But exchange would still be done in some form of common 'cash only' currency.
And this physical currency would be much the same as it is today.
The effects on society, and the impact of the economic collapse, would depend on how far the world had evolved into a 'cashless' currency model. The poor, and the marginally employed 'subsistence level' citizen, would see little change. They are pretty much already 'cash only'. But the middle class, whose wealth is now primarily 'cashless' wealth, would see significant impact.
Their wealth would reduce to whatever they had in their wallet.
As to whether there would be multiple currencies or a single surviving currency, it would depend on the extent of global, vs local, trade and travel. If trade was global, it would be done in some globally-based currency. However, if trade reverted back to local economies, then I suggest local currencies would become dominant. In medieval times, it did not make sense to use British currency in Germany, as there were very few opportunities to USE currency earned in Germany and spent in Britain.
Answer: Look at historical examples:  When the romans ruled the world there was both roman currency and local currency floating around.  Since it was metal based, when you ran into something new you weighed it.
Money is much like religion.  People accept money because they believe that when they want something that someone else will in turn accept it.  I work in your fields bringing in the hay.  You give me a thingy.  I take that thingy to the tavern and exchange it for a pail of beer (haying is brutally hot work) and some smaller thingies in change.
In another sense money is crystallized sweat.
In our present society most money is abstracted to bits in computer memory.  Currency transactions are a small part of the exchange.
Ragnarok.  All the bit type money (bitcoins especially...) evaporate.  But the existing currency still has many of the attributes you want:

Easy to carry
Durable.
Difficult to forge.

The problem would be the limited supply, and that paper money has a much shorter life span than coinage.  It's not unreasonable for coinage to last for half a century of daily use.  Paper money lasts 5-20 years currently, with the larger bills lasting longer.
A local warlord could establish the old coinage as currency by accepting taxes in it, and by being willing to exchange grain for it.
With time, as coinage grows more scarce it's value increases.  The local warlord would coin new coins that were sub-multiples of the existing ones.  These would vary from region to region with the region size being determined by the effective trading circle once the first warlord started making coin.
Making coinage would depend on what is left from the previous tech. It should be reasonable to make coins out of copper and brass.  Sheet aluminum would stick around, and would be fairly easy to stamp.  If there was any kind of remnant of electricity, you could do things like plate metals with copper or brass or zinc.
More info on making coins:  http://www.classicalcoins.com/page103.html
Answer: This is a very broad question, probably the reason for the three close votes so far. I think I can give you an useful answer, however.
A kind-of-medieval view of currency is a lump of valuable metal stamped for weight and purity and hence useful for commerce. Take a gold coin and a gold nugget of the same weight and purity and they should have the same value, except for a small premium on the coin to account for the standardized weight.
A kind-of-modern view of currency is a promise of payment of value by the issuing authority (generally a nation or group of nations these days). During the transition period, paper money could be tied directly to gold or silver. "Pay the bearer of this note one pound sterling silver."
As economies evolve they leave the gold standard, not least because it ties the money supply to the gold supply. Careless governments may get into high inflation when they abuse the system, careful governments will keep the inflation just high enough to keep the economy ticking (the opposite of inflation is deflation, which is bad for the economy).
So what standard are those re-medievalized nations of yours using? It could be that they are using currency as a stamped lump of metal, and still (for traditional reasons) use the old names. So there could be gold dollars in America, gold pounds in England, and gold euros in continental Europe. Merchants and kings might even insist on standard weights, so a gold dollar from the Prince of Philadelphia and a gold dollar from the Duke of Dallas are both 20 gram, say, only the Earl of Edmonton strikes 18-gram gold dollars and merchants know to be wary.

Follow-up: Deflation is bad for the economy when keeping the money under the mattress has a higher return on investment than spending the money on the inventory of a shop or a similar economic activity.
Comment: *"the opposite of inflation is deflation, which is bad for the economy"* You might want to make the distinction here between inflation/deflation as change in *amount of available currency* versus change in *prices*. To mention one very concrete example: Computers have become something crazy cheap compared to a few decades ago, right along with becoming far more powerful in every measurable way (amount of storage, raw number-crunching power, number-crunches per kWh, ...), and few people consider this to be a bad thing.
Answer: It is not very clear as to what "medievalization" means, and I will assume it is a "halfway apocalypse".
Here are my assumptions:

Global trade and travel will collapse to a small fraction of today's
value;
National energy grids and infrastructure networks will cease
to exist;
Central governments of large countries will either disappear completely or continue to function in a nominal way;
Technology will plummet to XIX-century level, however, there still be quite a few old relics around, like computers and tanks, carefully maintained and used;

Given the conditions above, it is reasonable to expect that global currencies of today will disappear or their role would be greatly diminished. Two factors would contribute to it:

Currency is national. If USA gets fractured to a number of smaller states, there will be no support for the old green buck, and its value would disappeared. New states would have every interest in minting and supporting their own coin.
Modern currency is a fiat currency. Fiat money have no intrinsic value, commonly it's just a piece of paper. Fiat money's value is typically supported by issuing authority. In the times of crisis, fiat money is known to undergo rapid inflation, and people are know to flock away from it.

Also, curiously enough, I believe that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin would not only be used, but would be even more trusted than small-states money. If there is still a number of running computers, and they are connected to the network (you don't really need a full scale national grid for that), Bitcoin transactions would go flawlessly like today, and will be more reliable than any other medieval-style operations. Bitcoin also would be impervious to governments' collapses and inflation.

Currencies of Modern Medieval Nations


server for unattended Windows and Linux installations

Question: what kind of software can handle with such problem: i need to prepare PC's for new employees in office, but I'm not administrator. I'd like to automate process of installing operating systems (Windows 7 and Ubuntu) and necessary software for new developers and other roles. We have standard pc/laptops configurations. I thought if I could to prepare one machine, then take an image of system and then deploy it via network to provide fast deployment.
Answer: There may be a tool already exists that does this but I wasn't able to find one. What I've done in the past is use a pre-installation disk like BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) alone with Ghost. This let me create images of the most common OS setups and installs once and then just ghost the appropriate image on to the machine within minutes.
If you are looking to automate it for Windows you should check out System Centre Operations Manager or Cobbler for Linux systems that will let you push out OS's over the network using PXE
Answer: For Windows you can use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 it is free and it is the official tool for deploying Windows 7.
Answer: Explore for G4U. It will clone whole PC from source image to client machine.


How quickly do you send invoice after completion of project?

Question: I've read mixed opinions. Is it better to wait for say, a week incase anything small comes up and avoid needing to invoice them for a small unit right after. Or, is it better to send the invoice right away? I freelance part time on the side, so my income is not dependent on the money.
Answer: The main objective is to be consistent. It can also be a great time saver to have all billings go out once a week, or twice a month, or once a month. To do this, you need to have your documentation ready to go.
Whether it's just a notepad, or an actual time-keeping application you use, ensure it's accurate, and find a way to mark what has been invoiced, and what has been paid. A simple Excel sheet could do this for you, if that works for you.
In my case, I invoice the day of, unless I'm expecting further work. My work is tech support, so it can be months or hours before hearing from a client again. The time I work is recorded, brief description of what I did during that time, then each week I go through my notes and do my billings.
Answer: I invoice at one of 2 times...

When a project is complete and I've gotten client approval. Note there still may be some follow up work such as sending files somewhere or communication changes to someone, etc. But the bulk of the work is done. I do this for intermittent or new clients to ensure they don't forget they owe me money. If you wait too long, some will forget and then they stall or wait to pay you since you didn't appear to be quick to invoice.
For regular, steady clients, who pay without fail and have a great deal of work weekly for me, I invoice monthly. It makes more sense to invoice once a month for everything I've done than to dedicate so much time to clerical work daily or weekly. Even if I were to invoice weekly or bi-monthly it would mean I'm spending a great deal more time with clerical stuff. I keep a detailed list of each project, time spent, and what's owed. Then at the end of the month I just take a "clerical day" and handle invoicing, follow-ups on late payments, etc.
Answer: For me it's a risk vs convenience thing.
If you have a regular client that you trust, and you know there are often some small additional tasks right after you delivered, there should be no problem with waiting a few days.
If you have a new client, or one where finances could be unstable, bill as soon as you can - for larger jobs, bill parts in advance or upon predefined milestones.
Answer:
How quickly do you send invoice after completion of project?

Immediately. There is no reason to wait. As for snagging and bug fixing, that is included for, say, two weeks after completion. Anything reported in those two weeks is fixed as part of the service. No excuse for buggy or shoddy work. Even if the fix takes longer than two weeks, they have a two week testing and reporting window. Anything afterwards requires a support contract which they pay for, or they hire you on an hourly basis. Absolutely nothing new is added in this period, just snagging and bug fixing. This is very important.
Timing of invoice matters a lot. But there are different circumstances to take into account.

Big Project.

I usually send three invoices, the first payment is usually around 20% before starting a project. I would never start work with a new customer without some sort of down payment. The second is for another 20% usually 3/4 of the way through when there is something for the client to see, test perhaps and certain milestones have been met. The final payment is on completion but before the system is live, released or in production. For websites, it is on the day of launch.

Ongoing work (hourly).

For this I would bill monthly in arrears, at the start of the month. So on August 1st they get an invoice for all work carried out in July, although for a new customer we would estimate the hours to be worked and I would get a down payment of about 20% up front, discounted off their first invoice.

Trusted long term customer

For project work I would bill at the completion of the project. For hourly work continue to bill on the first of each month.
As for delays in sending invoices, do not do that. You are suggesting that your work is not valuable, that your payments are not urgent and can wait, and that your services are not a priority. None of these is good for long term business. Send invoices immediately, get paid up front if only a small deposit, and take your invoicing very seriously. With regular formal invoicing acting as a project reporting tool, a good and consistent invoicing routine will make you look professional, valuable and a serious business. A poor invoicing routine will make you look like an amateur.


Import from Excel to an existing Sharepoint 13 list

Question: I have to update my existing Sharepoint (2013) List with data from an Excel Sheet.
I've only found an old Add-In for Sharepoint 2007.
Which other possibilities do I have?
Comment: Can't you just do a simple copy and paste ?
Comment: You can create a new list based on the excel sheet your'e having by Adding a Import SpreadSheet app into the site
Comment: Hi @Nico I have a very thorough and tested solution on a related question that I believe will work for you. For SP2013+ you will be working with Quick Edit instead of Datasheet View. That should be the only difference if I'm not mistaken.
**Answer**: [Import/Copy/Paste Data from Excel into Existing SharePoint List](https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/a/224375/44163).
Answer: Options:

You could try the App Store:
https://store.office.com/search.aspx?productgroup=SharePoint&qu=csv
Program it yourself

with Powershell
or JavaScript

Use MS-Access and some basic SQL statements

or VBscript
Answer: How long is the list you want to add? If it's not that long then i think the best way is to copy and then past in the 2013 list using edit mode. Using other ways may cause damage. The thing is that you should compare the two lists in order for them to have the same column in order then put your list on edit mode, copy any number of rows (or columns) using Ctrl + c, click once on the first box and then past using Ctrl + v. If it doesn't work the first time copy less and for the second time copy more.
Good Luck!
Answer: You can do this with third party tools: export your list to Excel, change whatever you need in Excel and sync your changes back to SharePoint.
I suggest having a look at SharePoint List Synchronizer (disclaimer: I work for SoftFluent, the company that developed this tool). If your need is one time only, this is doable within the trial period (= for free).
Worth noting that there is no server side setup. It's client only.


When does a pot not spill?

Question: What shape for the edges of a pot and what surface properties are best for a tea pot not to spill? Apart from the cross-section from the side, how does the radius of curvature as seen from above play a role? Ideally it should also stop drops coming down. And how does that depend on the properties of the liquid inside?
Comment: This is too open a question. Is it while walking? using? spill from the sprout or from the top? A rule of thumb is that a glass/pot/whatever spills less the smaller the possible wavelength of the waves at the surface of the liquid is. That is why if you are carrying a full cup of coffee it is wise to put a spoon in it: it halves the possible wavelengths and as the energy transmitted to the liquid is the same, the possible height is halved. A teapot has a complicated geometry, but I would guess the smaller the opening the better. If it is the sprout, it will involve its curve and finish.
Comment: Cans? I thought teapots are short and stout and mainly made of ceramic.
Comment: If you have questions about details just ask. After you have poured the liquid there are often drops dripping. Some cans do that. Some don't.
Comment: For drops to form after the flow is cut,the surface tension of the liquid/surface interface will come into play. Tea spouts have a sharp upward tilted ending that discourages drips. Cans with sharp edges will also discourage them.
Comment: Sharp edges could be part of the answer. I also see different shapes and angles. Moreover it seemed to me an elliptic container drips less from the flatter side. What about the material? And why the fancy shapes of teapots openings?
Comment: I've found an article to the walking spill problem:
http://pre.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v85/i4/e046117
Answer: The phenomenon you are asking about is known as the "teapot effect". The mystery is why tea dribbles down a pot's spout despite relatively high Weber numbers being associated with the flow. Such high Weber numbers indicate inertia should dominate over surface tension. Recent research has indicated the physics of pouring tea is more complex and does involve surface tension and contact angle effects due to these influencing the flow geometry even at high Weber numbers.
So although particular spout geometries (sharp edges) do help, the elimination of the teapot effect lies in the use of superhydrophobic spouts. The authors of the 2009 paper demonstrate that this completely eliminates any tea dribbling down.
Answer: There exists a description of the  published article "Walking with coffee: Why does it spill?"
It is a study experimentally and by models of  fluidity, as the title says, of the motion of coffee as one walks with a cup. It does not directly answer the question above, as it is not talking of drops after pouring the liquid.
It gives ways to control coffee spilling,

The best way to prevent coffee spilling might be to find an unusual cup. According to Krechetnikov, ideas from liquid sloshing engineering studies, which historically were done to stabilize fuel tanks inside missiles, indicate three possibilities for spill-free cup designs: "a flexible container to act as a sloshing absorber in suppressing liquid oscillations, a series of annular ring baffles arranged around the inner wall of the container to achieve sloshing suppression, or a different shape cup.

I still think that my aunt's suggestion at church tea parties to put the spoon in the teacup when taking it to the seated aunts is the best way not to spill it :).
Going back to the original question I will summarize my comments in "it is the edge" and that is why a lot of ingenuity has gone into designs of tea spouts available in the market. I have a cheap one liter water heater which has a plastic container. In the beginning it did not drip, but after two years the spout has deteriorated, not visibly, but obviously since it is now dripping. Either the heat or salt accumulation has changed
the edge.
Edit: the ruminations of a chemical engineer turned potter on how to make drip free spouts
Comment: the engineer/potter in the link above does make the observation given in @Johannes answer of hydrophobic materials.

When does a pot not spill?


horizon mapping in cycles

Question: I am rendering a scene using cycle and I have set up a background with a Sky texture. Now I want to adjust the height of the horizon. I tried to use a Mapping node but what it does is changing the background in a solid color (which varies depending on the Z value).
Answer: This didn't work because the Texture Coordinates node wasnt added. You should plug one of its output sockets (e.g. Generated or Object) into the Vector input socket of the Mapping node (this is a common approach if texturing anything in Cycles. Otherwise, in Cycles, texture won't appear on the mesh, just solid base color).

Thus you'll be able to adjust the position of the horizon simply by changing Location value by Z axis of the Mapping node (not sure if this is good idea to manipulate horizon like that).

(I changed Location value to 0.3 here).
Comment: Wow your Blender theme . . . how do you use it? It is very dark and overly contrasted, almost impossible to read quickly.
Comment: The contrast from the very saturated bright orange and the tremendously black background is a bit much for my eyes. I'm just surprised you can use it effectually. I think Science Lab and Elysiun are the best themes, so you can get a feel for what my personal preference is.
Comment: Back to Black is not the only option . . . it is my personal least favorite :P Oh well, this discussion is a tad off topic here I imagine

horizon mapping in cycles


Explanation of Dasein and Da-sein in Heidegger

Question: I am using the translation by Joan Stambaugh. Can someone explain what is meant by "Da-sein", and how does this compares to the more used "Dasein"?
Answer: First, one needs to understand how Dasein should be understood in Sein und Zeit (SuZ in what follows). It stems from the German word "Dasein" that can be translated by "existence". "Da" in German means "there" and "sein" means "to be/being". So "Dasein", in its original sense, could be understood as "being there", some kind of euphemism for "existence".
Now, and that is the crucial point, Dasein in Heidegger's work, should not be understood as "being there". Here is an excerpt from a letter written by Heidegger and addressed to the French philosopher Jean Beaufret (Questions III et IV, p. 130 — I unfortunately couldn't find the original letter so this is a translation in English from the translation in French from the letter in German):

"Da-sein" is a key word of my work, and it is victim of serious misinterpretations. "Da-sein" does not really mean for me "here I am !" but, if i may express myself in a likely impossible french: being-the-there (être-le-là) and the-there (le-là) is precisely Aléthéia, disclosure — opening.

It appears clearly that the "Da" in Dasein has nothing to do with the usual spatial "there" but must be understood as the opening in which the world is projected. And this explain why this "Da" must be as such constituted (see SuZ, V, "The existential constitution of the There", §§29-34.)
From there, let us see how this helps for the distinction of the terms Dasein and Da-sein. Take the following excerpt (SuZ, § 28):

Der Ausdruck »Da« meint diese wesenhafte Erschlossenheit. Durch sie ist dieses Seiende (das Dasein) in eins mit dem Da-sein von Welt für es selbst »da«

The Stambaugh translation reads (removing the hyphen that they mistakenly added inside the parenthesis):

The expression "There" means this essential disclosedness. Through disclosedness this being (Dasein [and not Da-sein]) is "there" for itself together with the Da-sein of the world.

Here, we see the contrast of the two words. On one hand, Dasein means this being (Seinde/étant) "who is concerned in his Being (Sein/être) with his Being (Sein/être)" (»Diesem Seinden in seinem Sein um dieses Sein selbst geht«, SuZ, §16.) On the other hand, Da-sein is now the Da-sein of the world. What does it mean? We could translate it further as "the Being-the-there of the world", that is being the opening (Da) open for the world to be projected in. And this way for Dasein to be-in-the-world ("In-der-Welt-Sein") is actually the constitution of the Dasein (see SuZ, II.) ; which is the reason why the Dasein as being (Seinde) is one ("eins") with the act (or the fact) of Being-the-there of/for the world. And in this union from Dasein and Da-sein, the Dasein itself must be the Da for himself.
As always, it gets very finicky and kind of a perpetual self-referencing. This is in some extent the direct consequence of the definition of Dasein : "This being who is concerned in his Being (Sein/être) with his Being (Sein/être)". There is already in this definition a loop that Heidegger keeps on unrolling through SuZ.
But from there emerges the difference and the profound relation between Dasein and Da-sein. They are two side of a same thing: Dasein is the being (Seinde) that Heidegger is interested which constitutes itself in the act of Being-the-there (Da-sein) for the world it projects and in which it projects himself. As constituting this act or fact is one with the being. (Note that I use there the term "act" in a loose way and it does not imply anything like intentionality, conscience, ego etc. On the contrary, the constitution of the Dasein precedes any of those.)
Answer: I answer here my own question as I have found it in the book of Thomas Sheehan, Making sense of Heidegger, 1st ed. Rowan & Littlefield Int. (2015). On p135:

Heidegger's term ofr any concrete, personal instance of hermeneutical openedness is Dasein, whereas his precise word for the "essence" or ontological structure of any concrete, personal ex-sistence is Existenz or Da-sein (usually hyphenated, but Heidegger is not always consistent).

If anyone is checking this reference, I encourage to (sic!) write the book of Sheehan in order to grasp how he uses all the terms such as "essence", "ex-sistence" etc.


How does the 3D maneuver gear work?

Question: In Shingeki no Kyojin, the soldiers use the 3D maneuver gear to attack the Titans and cut the back of their necks. In the last episodes, I have seen that they use a balloon of gas as the power to release the chains to climb the walls and trees. How does this exactly work? Is the gas the only power supply to release the chains?
Answer: There's several components to the 3D gear that are separate and operate independently. Not all aspects of the mechanics have been revealed in intricate detail, but there is a pretty good idea of the overall operation.
The short answer is that, yes, it is essentially all gas-powered. The trigger causes the gas to shoot the wire out, and a gas compression is also what shortens the wire to pull the device's user forward.
Operating device
The operating device is what the user holds (where the triggers are located). The mechanics of this are not known, and are described as being a black box.{2} Use of this component is what allows the others to function.
Grapple piston
Once the user pulls a trigger, it activates a piston{4} within the main device. This piston uses a quick spurt of compressed gas to fire forward the grapple hook toward its target.{nt.1} No other power source is necessary for this to happen due to the intense compression release from the piston.
Propulsion
The user's grapple hooks fire from a coil{1} which is located in the device itself. When the user wishes to move forward, their gear must quickly pull the cable back into the device. This is done via a fan mechanism{3} that is also gas-powered. Basically, when the user wants to wind back up, the compressed gas blows into the fan, spinning it rapidly and coiling the wire back up, pulling the user forward.

References and reading

Episode 8, card 1
Episode 8, card 2
Episode 9, card 1
Piston at Wikipedia
3D maneuver gear at the Shingeki no Kyojin Wiki
Note 1: Episode 8's second currently disclosable information states that the gas is "compressed ... and injected"{2}, but this appears to be a grammatical error; see comments below.
Comment: About the note on "injected": The corresponding Japanese does not say about ejection. A more literal translation is like "Gas is injected into the cylinder, under compression." (No surprises there, actually.)
Comment: @Asa Fair enough, my note was an assumption (considering that's how it's expelled from the tank to be useful in the machine).
Answer: I have a good idea on how the black box works. The top trigger is used for the hook and the bottom trigger is used to activate the gas with the one fan on that side therefore turning the operator. The two switches on the side are used to extend and reel in the operator on the wire that is attached to the hooks. If you have any other ideas please let me know, I saw Levi do this in one of the OVA's that is how I figured it out. If you want the link just let me know.  http://watchsnk.net/2014/09/shingeki-no-kyojin-ova-gaiden-kuinaki-sentaku-no-regret/ This is a simple theory since it was only for aprox. 10 seconds, it starts at 17:47
Comment: You should include the link in your answer as a reference.
Answer: I've been looking into this and I do consider it feasible. The retraction system checks out but some issues I have thought of (and are pretty obvious) are that it would be very heavy with the compressed gas on you, (practical use you wouldn't need the sheath or the blades cause titans don't exist).
To shoot a hook out with just compressed gas you wouldn't get very far especially if it's steel you would have to use something a lot lighter like carbon fiber. (I hadn't thought of pistons till I read one of these answers though). How much gas you can release out of the pressure tanks at once is pretty small with current technology so you couldn't get much of a boost from it but if you found a way to release gas faster without blowing yourself up then that would solve a lot of problems.
That all I really have on the subject, I really want to build some 3DMG but it will be a very drawn out project because it will cost a lot. I don't have and links that really would help describe any of this.
Answer: For the Black Box mechanism (grips) the curved trigger (shaped like a brake lever on a bicycle) located on the outside of the grip is used to fire the grappling hooks towards the target. The top trigger within the grip is used to release the grappling hooks or to reel them back towards the user pulling the user towards the target. The bottom trigger within the grip is used to activate the gas propulsion system that helps the user move around with speed on the ground or in the air. The sliders placed near the top of the grip are used to change the angle and position the shooters on the users hips are facing letting them target where to fire a grappling hook.
SOURCES: NO REGRETS OVA- Levi using ODM Gear.

How does the 3D maneuver gear work?


How do I complete file paths in emacs?

Question: Say for instance I'm editing a config file and I want to type in a path.  Is there a plugin for emacs that lets you complete a file path in that buffer?  I've searched for this and there's like a bazillion completion plugins out there.
Comment: I'm not clear on what you area asking here. Modern emacen have path completion in the mini-buffer (when using `find-file` for instance). Do you want a similar behavior in a content buffer?
Comment: @dmckee - Yes, that's actually exactly what I'm looking for.
Comment: @dmckee Is this OS specific? I had file name completion in Find File in ubuntu but there is no completion in OSX. For instance I have a file called "reference" in root and I am in mini buffer: "Find file: ~/" and I enter "ref" and I expect completion but nothing happens. Do I need to install something?
Comment: @Zeynel Works fine for me in Mac OS, too. Either with the Apple installed version or the homebrew version. Also worked with the fink version on my older machine.
Comment: @dmckee Strange. Maybe I ask a new question. Thanks.
Answer: I usually type Ctrl-X Ctrl-F like I would open a file, but instead of pressing RET I press Ctrl-A Ctrl-K Ctrl-G to copy the path and then paste it into the buffer I was editing with Ctrl-Y.
I don't need this often enough, but if I really wanted a better solution, I would definitely use Trey Jackson's solution using hippie-expand.  I thought about how hippie-expand might be a better way to do this when first answering, but I didn't know and was too lazy to look it up, so I just wrote what I do.
Comment: @Jason Baker: It depends on whether you know the exact file name or if you need to explore a bit for it.
Comment: Clunky and inelegant, but working. I have to admit to doing this from time to time myself. I'm still interested in a neater solution, though...
Comment: Indeed.  It doesn't really seem like a lot less work than typing it out manually though.
Answer: Try Hippie Expand, which as one of it's possibilities has 'try-complete-file-name.  You can change the order and list of expansion functions hippie expand will use to favor expanding the file name.
Or, you could even write a custom wrapper that would only do the file name expansion.  Something like:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-/") 'my-expand-file-name-at-point)
(defun my-expand-file-name-at-point ()
  "Use hippie-expand to expand the filename"
  (interactive)
  (let ((hippie-expand-try-functions-list '(try-complete-file-name-partially try-complete-file-name)))
    (call-interactively 'hippie-expand)))

Answer: Up to version 25, the vanilla, out-of-the-box
M-x comint-dynamic-complete-filename

and
M-x comint-replace-by-expanded-filename

both worked outside of comint mode. Of course, you can use the minibuffer's dynamic expansion to use less keystrokes to get to them (e.g., M-x comint-dynamic-complete-filename or M-x comint-replace-by-expanded-filename). Or, if you will be doing this frequently, you can bind them to key sequences of your choice using global-set-key .
For version 26+, it seems to me that you need to make sure that comint mode is explicitly loaded --- adding a line
(require 'comint)

in your .emacs file should make this work again.
Caveat: Not all applicable comint functions can be used this way. comint-dynamic-list-filename-completions doesn't seem to work outside of its native mode.
Answer: It is also possible to do this using the company autocompletion if the company-files are in the list of company-backends (default in my installation) or explicitly by calling company-files.
Comment: With Doom emacs, C-x C-f after typing the partial path, it works the charm!
Answer: I recently discovered the works of Tomohiro Matsuyama (@m2ym) and I have been very impressed by the quality of its emacs packages.
I have struggled with most auto-completion extensions and found out that they all have major shortcomings.
Check out Tomo's auto-complete (http://auto-complete.org/doc/manual.html) it has been a breeze to install (I'm on Linux) and covers many auto-completion needs in a modern fashion.
Of course, your request for in-buffer file names completion is perfectly covered.
Finally, if you happen to do Ruby too, make sure not to miss his RSense extension; again, the best of its kind.
Comment: And here is the new link: https://github.com/auto-complete/auto-complete/blob/master/doc/manual.md
Comment: The link is broken

How do I complete file paths in emacs?


How can I re-establish text threads after merging multiple files into one for ebook?

Question: I have combined multiple CS6 Indesign files into one through the "move pages" option. Now, I need all my text links to be re-establish because this book will also be produced as ebook as well. Is that possible? If so, how do I do that?
Answer: Once two unconnected pages are in the same file, you can connect them the same way you have with the pages that were already there. Click the text thread square in the bottom-right of the page (just above the bottom-right corner) and then click on the frame you'd like to connect. Even if there's content in the imported frame, the two threads will connect. You might see your text reflow based on the amount of space in each side of the thread.


Sujud as sahu for repeating fatiha in order to correct

Question: Do we need to do sujud as sahu for repeating fatiha in salah in order to correct a word or ayah before going to sujud
Answer: Sūratul Fātiha is one of the compulsory parts of Salat, according to the 4 schools of Fiqh except The Hanafīs. The Compulsory part cannot be corrected with Sujud-Sahwi, if intentionally omitted or ignored.
In this case, Sūratul Fātiha can not be corrected with Sujud-Sahwi but can be repeated to corrected mistakes without making any Sujud at the end of the Salat.
The Salat is valid without making any Sujud.


Deleting previous recipients from Gmail

Question: Gmail, seems to maintain a log of email addresses I've responded to. Addresses in this list appear whenever typing in an address in the To: field OR when exporting the Gmail contacts to share with another service. These are often addresses to support or general contact addresses from websites.There are so many of these in my history that it makes it difficult to scan and find addresses I am looking for.  The Gmail help facility apparently treats the word "ALL" as the 100 most recently emailed.  I want to go through this list and purge these once used email addresses and have a more salient Gmail address book.
Answer: First, you should go into Settings in the General tab and change the value for "Create contacts for auto-complete:" from "When I send a message to a new person, add them to Other Contacts so that I can auto-complete to them next time" to "I'll add contacts myself".
Then, in your Contacts, find "Other Contacts".
In the Contacts Preview, that can be found under "More". (This actually brings you back the the "Old Contacts" app.)
In the "Old Contacts", you can find a link for "Other Contacts" in the left-hand menu, probably under "Most Contacted". There you'll find all of the contacts Gmail has automatically added for you. "Select All" and delete them. You may need to do this for multiple pages.

Deleting previous recipients from Gmail


Why is it not allowed to dispatch an Airbus A320 with an inoperative ELAC 2?

Question: In the case of ELAC 2 failure, ELAC 1 will take over. However, it is not allowed to dispatch an Airbus A320 with an inoperative ELAC 2. Why is that?
Comment: Is it permissible to dispatch with ELAC 1 inoperative?
Comment: @CptReynolds According to the MMEL, ELAC 1 may be dispatched inop with conditions, but there is no relief for ELAC 2.
Comment: @user71659 If ELAC 2 is inoperative, could it be allowed to swap ELACs and dispatch under MEL with ELAC 1 inoperative? That would explain why ELAC 2 inoperative doesn't have an MEL relief.
Answer: As pointed out by this discussion on PPRune, ELAC 1 only controls elevator actuators hooked in to the Blue hydraulic system. ELAC 2 is split across Green and Yellow.
If ELAC 1 is the only operational computer and the aircraft enters emergency electrical configuration, blue hydraulics will be lost until the RAT deploys. Further, the fallback for ELAC 2 (G/Y hyd) is SEC 2, which is not powered in EEC. Thus, the aircraft will have no primary pitch control.
The solution is that if the fault is in the ELAC computers themselves, to swap the units before dispatch.
In general, if there's something weirdly asymmetric about the A320, the first guess should be something to do with EEC. This is because EEC, by design, tries to only power one unit, typically number 1, of each system.
Answer: Basically during RAT extension blue hydraulic system is not powered which operates blue ACTR of elevator which is controlled by ELAC#1. To avoid control confusion ELAC#2 straight away given as no go to give pitch control during this transit RAT extension phase.


Will the starvation mode /muscle loss happen if I eat just enough to keep me not hungry?

Question: I am following a 3 days per week workout schedule and I am seeing muscle and fat increase as well. I feel like I am eating too much since most of the time I am so full and feels like 'will all this stuff in my stomach get digested' and not hungry at all. I am planning to cut down on quantitiy of food, but too many articles online stress on never going tot he starvation mode (some even say it is all made up there is nothing like starvation/degeneration unless youa re really starving. Each website and forum posters looks like having their own theories formulated.) . My question is, if I eat just enough to keep me not hungry (all the time) can I keep the fat buildup to a minimum and not lose existing muscle?(In my opinion,  I would consider my body's response more authentic than anything spit out by some caloric calculator) If you can point to any trust-able references ,that will be much appreciated.
Comment: @rrirower this question is about dieting with respect to building muscle and minimizing fat gains in the context of a workout program. I believe this is perfectly in scope for this site.
Comment: Questions about nutrition are not within the scope of this forum.
Comment: Can we redirect to the health SE then? is there a feature for that?
Comment: "Feel not hungry" is too subjective. For instance, there are drugs that will make you feel "not hungry". Eating some tiny snack when you're not hungry can stimulate hunger.
Answer: As you said, there are several theories and it looks like most are supported by some facts or science.
So in the end, my answer is no approach is effective for everybody. Just try it and check how does it work for you. We are not all equal and something that may work for you could not be effective on a different person.
Now to get more concrete, I did exactly what you are planning to do and it worked wonders to me. I lost four kilograms and kept my strength and lean mass. The result was that I was able to do 14 pull-ups, which I was never able to achieve before "dieting" like that.
Be sure to learn to distinguish between being hungry and just feeling like eating. Sometimes you may only actually be thirsty and need to feel your stomach with some nice water to stop the cravings.
Also, if you really like food as I do, prepare to be challenged, especially in the first days. Then your brain and body (but it's mostly the brain, actually) will become more acquainted to a smaller food intake.
Comment: Regarding the pullups, you did them with ~4kg less weight which matters. All other things being equal, bodyweight makes a huge difference for pullup reps.
Comment: True. But I also retained my lean mass. I could lose 4 kg of fat AND muscle proportionally and lose strength as well, but I didn't.


Does asp.net mvc Url.Content encode the string?

Question: Does asp.net mvc Url.Content encode the input or should I also use Url.Encode on top of it?
Answer: No.
According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.urlhelper.content(VS.90).aspx it only expands the ~ character.  If that character does not exist then the path is returned as it was passed in.
You can also test it.  Using ASP.Net 4.0 it did not for me.
Answer: The Content method just converts a virtual path to an absolute application path. What is there to Encode?


roller shadowing after painting long walls

Question: ok, here we go. I hate to even ask this because I know how this goes... BUT.... The painter I started working with years ago sucks and moving on to working with much more experienced painters, I realize they are also having the same results! The roller marks on the walls even after two coats! They all seem to act like it's just normal and that I am being too picky. First of all I am NOT referring to ridge lines where you push too hard on the roller, I am talking about the shades of paint where you can see the up down up down pattern. I have tried several brands of roller covers, several nap lengths, rolling right to left then back again, tried applying paint quite thick. My god I just don't get it because I have read this question from others before and actually, everything I stated above was the suggestions they gave.  Honestly I am a very popular painter and come highly recommended and have been for years but when this does happen, I just can't seem to find any rhyme or reason for it.
Comment: Are you sure you aren't just seeing tricks of the light, with light coming from an angle casting shadows on the uneven surface?   The surface is going to be uneven.   Does it happen when the primer is very close to the same color as the topcoat? (If it does, it's not print-through).
Answer: There are a few factors that contribute to a quality job, or conversely, shading when roller painting walls.
1) Original color, 2) surface prep & priming, 3) quality of application equipment, 4) quality of paint, 5) technique used.
Drastic color changes usually require a prime coat. The proper primer base color or tinting can be an important step to hide the original contrasting color. Cleaning old walls of all soap, grease, smoke and other residuals goes a long way to assure a good bond of new paint/primer.
The quality of the paint you select is extremely important. A spec grade paint or bargain basement product will be low in pigments or use a lower quality acrylic base. A cheap paint in a light color over PVA on new drywall may pass and be fine, but rarely cover well when changing color over existing paint.
Over the years, I have applied hundreds, if not thousands of gallons of paint. I have migrated between brands as technologies changed, but always found that a mid to upper grade gives the best results. Expect to pay $30 to $45 per gallon.  The most important traits of a good paint is the workability time and spreadability. Very thick paints are hard to spread evenly and require a 10% to 20% addition of Flowtrol. If your paint tacks or starts to dry too quickly, it is difficult to work the wet edge or blend with the cutting lines. Very thin bodied paints tend to dry very quickly and should only be used in sprayer.  applications.
I have been given sample gallons of the super expensive "one coat" paint/primer, and guess what, they don't perform much better than any other decent grade paint. I have yet found any situation other than covering the same color, when one coat is satisfactory.
Use only high quality roller covers. I will only use Perdy White Cloud 3/8" covers for most applications. If the nap of your covers flattens out too quickly, the coverage will be inconsistent.
The most important factor in getting good coverage with two coats, is technique. Everyone knows to work into a wet edge, but that is only half the deal. Good consistency is a directly related to evenly applying the paint. Cover smaller areas at once, not more than about 8 to 10 square feet per roller load. Do not work too much paint out of the roller between reloads. This does not mean to put the paint on too heavy, rather it means try to maintain even wetness of the roller.  Use long, light overlap finishing strokes, but do not overwork the area. When working alone, do not cut more line than you can roll before the cut starts to dry. About every 6 to 8 feet of wall, inspect it at an angle so you can see any thin spots or holidays. Looking at steep angles uses the available light to highlight imperfections. You should still have time to go back and touch up problem areas if you look carefully before getting too far ahead.
If you are seeing a lot of uneven shading after your first coat, the technique may be wrong. One coat is never enough, but it should be applied with the same care as the second coat. A poor quality first coat application makes a lousy background for the second or finish coat.
Comment: Couldn't have said it better, except maybe even more stressing of the importance of maintaining a **wet edge** and putting enough paint down. If it says 400 sq. ft. per gallon don't try to stretch it much further.


Which output data type to choose in QGIS SAGA Raster Calculator in Batch Mode?

Question: I have 5 years of MODIS13Q1 NDVI .tiff images for time series analysis. I want to multiply all the images with the scale factor of 0.0001 before using them. In order to process all at once I try to use Processing Toolbox -> SAGA -> Grid-Calculus -> Raster Calculator in Batch Processing Mode. As MODIS13Q1 is a 16 bit signed integer I couldn't decide which output Data Type I should choose?
The choices are:

bit;
unsigned 1 byte integer;
signed 1 byte integer;
unsigned 2 byte integer;
signed 2 byte integer;
unsigned 4 byte integer;
signed 4 byte integer;
4 byte floating point number;
8 byte floating point number;

It's suppose to be a floating number but should I choose 4 byte or 8 byte?
Answer: Choose the option "signed 2 byte integer" for generate image of type 16 bit signed integer.


Identifying largest layers (file size)

Question: Is there a way to see how the storage size of each layer in Illustrator, InDesign or any of the Creative Cloud?
Answer: None of these programs will give you the file size of individual layers because the 'size' will depend on the format that you save the file in. If you need to know how big each layer is in your desired file format then your only option would be to save each layer as a separate file. i.e. by deleting all the other layers and saving out each layer individually.

Identifying largest layers (file size)


How do I find out if a patent is still active?

Question: I was granted a patent in 1994 and was unable to pay maintenance fees; therefore I lost the patent. I am looking to see if someone has gained control of it.
Comment: If you provide a patent number, we can potentially provide more specific information.
Answer: I don't think it is possible for someone other than the assignee to "gain control" of an abandoned patent. Regardless, A patent issued in 1994 will almost certainly have expired by the time of your question regardless of maintenance fees. US patents back then expired either 17 years from the grant date or 20 years from the priority date whichever was later. International patents were generally 20 years from the priority or filing date.
Answer: You can use the USPTO's public PAIR database to see what has become of the patent including any assignments:  http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair
Comment: This would be a better answer if it wasn't only US patent specific.


Unable to edit color of text in Adobe Photoshop CC 2020

Question: I'm currently working through the official training workbook, the 2019 release, and am halted on Chapter 7. I'm trying to edit the text, and I'm able to do everything but edit the text color. I'm selected on the layer it's on too, however when my layers are selected they are highlighted red now. Photoshop is a jack in the box, and would rather not have to restart the Chapter. I'll be clicking buttons until things work for now, but I'd love to hear from some professionals.
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Unable to change text color in Photoshop](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/703/unable-to-change-text-color-in-photoshop)
Comment: Hi Zachary! I'm sorry to tell you that this is a bit too little to go on. First off, what version of Photoshop are you on? It would also help if you could include a screenshot of your situation so we can more easily telly you where to click. Thanks!
Answer: It would be nice to see a screenshot of what exactly the issue is but check if you do not have the text layer locked. If it is you have to open the layer before you can edit the text.
Answer: Enable Text tool.
Select Layer [in the right-hand layers panel].

Click the colour box in the top bar.

Pick a colour.
Alternatively, select the text box itself, then any or all letters within it.
If you select individual characters, then only the colour of those selected will change.

This methodology has changed slightly in recent versions. I don't do a lot of text, so I'm not sure when it changed, but this works for CC2020.
In older versions, any time you wanted to change colour it seemed the entire selected text would invert, so you couldn't see the actual colour until you'd finished. [Either I'd never figured it out properly in older versions, or this one is a significant improvement ;)


How do I use filesystem functions in PHP, using UTF-8 strings?

Question: I can't use mkdir to create folders with UTF-8 characters:
<?php
$dir_name = "Depósito";
mkdir($dir_name);
?>

when I browse this folder in Windows Explorer, the folder name looks like this:
Depósito

What should I do?
I'm using php5
Answer: Just urlencode the string desired as a filename. All characters returned from urlencode are valid in filenames (NTFS/HFS/UNIX), then you can just urldecode the filenames back to UTF-8 (or whatever encoding they were in).
Caveats (all apply to the solutions below as well):

After url-encoding, the filename must be less that 255 characters (probably bytes).
UTF-8 has multiple representations for many characters (using combining characters). If you don't normalize your UTF-8, you may have trouble searching with glob or reopening an individual file.
You can't rely on scandir or similar functions for alpha-sorting. You must urldecode the filenames then use a sorting algorithm aware of UTF-8 (and collations).

Worse Solutions
The following are less attractive solutions, more complicated and with more caveats.
On Windows, the PHP filesystem wrapper expects and returns ISO-8859-1 strings for file/directory names. This gives you two choices:

Use UTF-8 freely in your filenames, but understand that non-ASCII characters will appear incorrect outside PHP. A non-ASCII UTF-8 char will be stored as multiple single ISO-8859-1 characters. E.g. ó will be appear as ó in Windows Explorer.
Limit your file/directory names to characters representable in ISO-8859-1. In practice, you'll pass your UTF-8 strings through utf8_decode before using them in filesystem functions, and pass the entries scandir gives you through utf8_encode to get the original filenames in UTF-8.

Caveats galore!

If any byte passed to a filesystem function matches an invalid Windows filesystem character in ISO-8859-1, you're out of luck.
Windows may use an encoding other than ISO-8859-1 in non-English locales. I'd guess it will usually be one of ISO-8859-#, but this means you'll need to use mb_convert_encoding instead of utf8_decode.

This nightmare is why you should probably just transliterate to create filenames.
Comment: This answer doesn't work for me. `mkdir('Depósito')` creates `Dep%C3%B3sito` which I can't really believe is what the OP wants, even though he accepted this answer. See Umberto Salsi's answer for what is really going on and how to build a proper solution with `setlocale()` and `iconv()`.
Comment: PHP's behaviour has changed with PHP 7.1 - have a look at https://stackoverflow.com/a/38466772/680382
Comment: ISO-8859-1 is not more useful on Windows than ISO-8859-2 or ISO-8859-3. If you want to be safe, go with the 7-bit ASCII.
Answer: Under Unix and Linux (and possibly under OS X too), the current file system encoding is given by the LC_CTYPE locale parameter (see function setlocale()). For example, it may evaluate to something like en_US.UTF-8 that means the encoding is UTF-8. Then file names and their paths can be created with fopen() or retrieved by dir() with this encoding.
Under Windows, PHP operates as a "non-Unicode aware program", then file names are converted back and forth from the UTF-16 used by the file system (Windows 2000 and later) to the selected "code page". The control panel "Regional and Language Options", tab panel "Formats" sets the code page retrieved by the LC_CTYPE option, while the "Administrative -> Language for non-Unicode Programs" sets the translation code page for file names. In western countries the LC_CTYPE parameter evaluates to something like language_country.1252 where 1252 is the code page, also known as "Windows-1252 encoding" which is similar (but not exactly equal) to ISO-8859-1. In Japan the 932 code page is usually set instead, and so on for other countries. Under PHP you may create files whose name can be expressed with the current code page. Vice-versa, file names and paths retrieved from the file system are converted from UTF-16 to bytes using the "best-fit" current code page.
This mapping is approximated, so some characters might be mangled in an unpredictable way. For example, Caffé Brillì.txt would be returned by dir() as the PHP string Caff\xE9 Brill\xEC.txt as expected if the current code page is 1252, while it would return the approximate Caffe Brilli.txt on a Japanese system because accented vowels are missing from the 932 code page and then replaced with their "best-fit" non-accented vowels. Characters that cannot be translated at all are retrieved as ? (question mark). In general, under Windows there is no safe way to detect such artifacts.
More details are available in my reply to the PHP bug no. 47096.
Answer: PHP 7.1 supports UTF-8 filenames on Windows disregarding the OEM codepage.
Comment: You're right. How 7.1 would see it, depends on the default_charset. Your example obviously witnesses the situation till 7.1 - UTF-8 string is passed to the ANSI API. To force the old behavior, it's only required to set the default_charset to some single byte codepage, usually to the system ANSI or OEM codepage. Otherwise, with default_charset=UTF-8 by default, file names are written and read correctly. More info here https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/PHP-7.1/UPGRADING#L391 . Thanks.
Comment: If a file (saved under PHP 7.0) is named `Depósito` on the filesystem, how does PHP 7.1 see it? I would think PHP 7.0 and 7.1 would see two different filenames, with BC implications.
Answer: The problem is that Windows uses utf-16 for filesystem strings, whereas Linux and others use different character sets, but often utf-8. You provided a utf-8 string, but this is interpreted as another 8-bit character set encoding in Windows, maybe Latin-1, and then the non-ascii character, which is encoded with 2 bytes in utf-8, is handled as if it was 2 characters in Windows.
A normal solution is to keep your source code 100% in ascii, and to have strings somewhere else.
Comment: I haven't tried it, but can't you use mb_convert_encoding to convert the string the utf-16?
Answer: Using the com_dotnet PHP extension, you can access Windows' Scripting.FileSystemObject, and then do everything you want with UTF-8 files/folders names.
I packaged this as a PHP stream wrapper, so it's very easy to use :
https://github.com/nicolas-grekas/Patchwork-UTF8/blob/lab-windows-fs/class/Patchwork/Utf8/WinFsStreamWrapper.php
First verify that the com_dotnet extension is enabled in your php.ini
then enable the wrapper with:
stream_wrapper_register('win', 'Patchwork\Utf8\WinFsStreamWrapper');

Finally, use the functions you're used to (mkdir, fopen, rename, etc.), but prefix your path with win://
For example:
<?php
$dir_name = "Depósito";
mkdir('win://' . $dir_name );
?>

Answer: You could use this extension to solve your issue: https://github.com/kenjiuno/php-wfio
$file = fopen("wfio://多国語.txt", "rb"); // in UTF-8
....
fclose($file);

Answer: Try CodeIgniter Text helper from this link
Read about convert_accented_characters() function, it can be costumised
Answer: My set of tools to use filesystem with UTF-8 on windows OR linux via PHP and compatible with .htaccess check file exists:
function define_cur_os(){

    //$cur_os=strtolower(php_uname());

    $cur_os=strtolower(PHP_OS);

    if(substr($cur_os, 0, 3) === 'win'){

        $cur_os='windows';

    }

    define('CUR_OS',$cur_os);

}

function filesystem_encode($file_name=''){

    $file_name=urldecode($file_name);

    if(CUR_OS=='windows'){

        $file_name=iconv("UTF-8", "ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT", $file_name);

    }

    return $file_name;

}

function custom_mkdir($dir_path='', $chmod=0755){

    $dir_path=filesystem_encode($dir_path);

    if(!is_dir($dir_path)){

        if(!mkdir($dir_path, $chmod, true)){

            //handle mkdir error

        }
    }
    return $dir_path;
}

function custom_fopen($dir_path='', $file_name='', $mode='w'){

    if($dir_path!='' && $file_name!=''){

        $dir_path=custom_mkdir($dir_path);

        $file_name=filesystem_encode($file_name);

        return fopen($dir_path.$file_name, $mode);

    }

    return false;

}

function custom_file_exists($file_path=''){

    $file_path=filesystem_encode($file_path);

    return file_exists($file_path);

}

function custom_file_get_contents($file_path=''){

    $file_path=filesystem_encode($file_path);

    return file_get_contents($file_path);

}

Additional resources

special characters in "file_exists" problem (php)
PHP file_exists with accent returns false
http://www.developpez.net/forums/d825883/php/php-sgbd/php-mysql/mkdir-accents/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uname#Table_of_standard_uname_output
Comment: iconv(): Detected an illegal character in input string
Answer: I don't need to write much, it works well:
<?php
$dir_name = mb_convert_encoding("Depósito", "ISO-8859-1", "UTF-8");
mkdir($dir_name);
?>


What will happen if there is high concentration of both calcitonin and PTH in blood?

Question: What will happen if there were a high concentration of both calcitonin and PTH (parathyroid hormone) in the blood? In that case, will calcium resorption from bone occur, or absorption from intestine, or deposition of calcium in bones? Also, will blood calcium level rise or fall?
Comment: To OP, is this a homework question? You are required to show prior research effort. We're not here to spoonfeed the answers to your assignments.
Comment: It depends on duration of PTH , whether its intermittent or chronic hyperparathyroidism, in different cases effects will be different.
Comment: Thanks @David for all your effort in improving this post. Your comments were flagged for deletion and the mods did so. However, they were quite helpful and if you feel they should stay in place, let me know. Cheers.
Comment: @AliceD This aint homework. I was reading this in book and question spoofed in my mind. There was no where to research properly. The two hormones works on different osteocytes, I had no such idea,  to search anything relevant.
Answer: Short Answer: quite surprisingly, both will occur.
Long Answer: as is quite well known, calcitonin lowers blood Ca2+ levels. It performs this task by two methods:

it inhibits the activity of osteoclasts in the bones (Custoff, 2008)
it inhibits reabsorption of Ca2+ in renal tubular cells, allowing it to be excreted in urine (Potts et al, 2008)

However, the second mechanism is only minor. On the other hand, parathyroid hormone (PTH) performs just its opposite: it increases Ca2+ levels in the blood.
So, lets come to the main point: since calcitonin and PTH have opposing functions, what would happen if both were acting simultaneously?
It seems, funnily though, that both the functions will occur simultaneously. Wong et al, 1975, in their research, showed that the target cells of calcitonin and PTH are different i.e. calcitonin and PTH act on different osteoclasts. So, to put it simply, while activity of some osteoclasts would be decreased, that of some others would be increased. Overall, Ca2+ levels in the blood would remain pretty much constant.
Comment: Would be much better if this is also added, PTH is not always reabsorbing the bones, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16563840