Courses to take in Machine Learning for applying for PhD in ML?

Question: I just finished my BSc Hons. in Mathematics and CS from one of the leading research institutes in India (Not IITs). Now I'm going to continue my masters in CS. I like ML. But I haven't done any proper course. I wish to apply for PhD in this area. Can anybody tell me a detailed idea about the courses that I need to take so that I can apply for PhD in US or Europe?
Comment: There is no expectation that you must take advanced courses in subfield X as an undergraduate in order to get a PhD in subfield X in the US.  But it certainly couldn't hurt to take a course called "machine learning".
Comment: "I haven't done any proper course" - Don't even worry about courses. They might be neccessary during BSc but since you have finished the basic ones just borrow the books and lock the door. Get the basics down and take notes. The courses will just slow you down.
Answer:
Can anybody tell me a detailed idea about the courses that I need to take so that I can apply for PhD in US or Europe ?

PhD programmes in the US and Europe are significantly different. While a PhD in Europe expects you to have a fair idea of what you intend to research, the US universities allow you to take courses to learn - quite similar to what the IITs follow.
What courses to take largely depends on where you are studying, right? You cannot take a course if it is not offered.
An example Data Analytics course is at https://volgenau.gmu.edu/program/view/20521
Basically, you want to learn a couple of programming languages - Python (with scikit-learn) is good, take a course on statistics (and learn R programming). A core course in Machine Learning (teaching decision trees, neural networks, clustering etc.) and few courses on database systems. You need to know SQL and also NoSQL systems. Try MySQL and MongoDB, for example. These should generally give you the pre-requisites.
Also, just learning theory is not enough - one needs to also do practical work. For that, I would suggest learning Linux and having the ability to spin up VMs and setup a system with Hadoop etc. Cloudera provides a VM to get started, and so does MapR. Virtualbox is a good free virtualisation software.
You also need to decide what field of ML you want to go in further. This would depend on whay you want to learn ML - the reasons would be your own. Of teh sub-fields one could look at pattern recognition, audio recognition, predictive analytics, classification systems etc. You should then do your Masters work on that. IMHO, it would make sense to look at small, real world problems and try to solve them with ML to build a portfolio, then tackling something huge. If you are able to solve small but significant real-world issues, you would have a much better chance of landing the paid scholarship.
To get an idea about opportunities available in the UK, you can join the email@example.com mailing list. Social media researchers can join mailing lists of the  Association of Internet Researchers at http://aoir.org
Note: Before or after down-voting this answer please leave some rationale as to why you do not think this is appropriate advice.
Comment: Again, I am going to give some different input.  For the PhD specifically, there is no exception that you will necessarily enter knowing anything about databases, linux, or any specific tools.  In the US, you will be competing against others who are applying while they are still in undergrad.  The expectation is that you have the CS and math background to become a solid researcher in your field.  Database skills can be picked up quickly during the PhD or even in your first job.
Comment: This is good advice, but it seems more geared towards someone who is going straight into industry.  It seems to me that a lot of academic researchers in ML focus on the theory and application, but don't need to know anything about SQL.
Comment: The OP has not mentioned whether (s)he wants to get into academia or industry. Even if the end goal is getting into academia, if the person wants to get funding (s)he has o be useful to the school where one is doing research. Nothing is as useful as being able to crunch data productively.  Also, frankly if you do not know how existing data systems (SQL) work, how will you do work on NoSQL? Mere theory will not help in production See: Lin, J., & Ryaboy, D. (2013). Scaling Big Data Mining Infrastructure: The Twitter Experience. SIGKDD Explorer Newsletter, 14(2), 6-19. doi:10.1145/2481244.2481247
Comment: Okk... I asked the question thinking about doing PhD. How much emphasis should be given on doing databases and learning linux?
Comment: @supernova: depends on what you want to do during and after your PhD, how hands-on you want to be, and what is the reason for doing a PhD. In my opinion these are skills that one would need to be familiar with. You can either learn them during your Mastera - ensuring that your Masters work is good and you get admission into a good PhD course, or you can have these skills forced upon you during your PhD.
Comment: @Hobbes: "Database skills can be picked up quickly during the PhD or even in your first job." - agree but better to be prepared when entering the field. When at Yahoo!, a researcher at Yahoo! Research (who was earlier at Google) said: At Y! Research we look at mathematical optimizations, while at Google they throw engineering & hardware at the problem. And _that_ is one of the _key_ distinctions between where Y! (sold for $4+ bn) & Google ($530 bn market cap is). All PhDs that I have seen, even in fields like Political Science, let alone CS have had a very good grasp of practical computing.
Comment: @SACHINGARG _ And that is one of the key distinctions between Y! & Google_ — [citation needed]  Google also employs a **lot** of theoreticians.
Comment: @JeffE - Yahoo! also used to employs/employed theoreticians - Preston McAfee, Prabhakar Raghavan and a ton of folks in Yahoo! Research before Carol Bartz closed down that division. It is the blend of theory and practice that is important.
Answer: Look at specific program requirements.  PhD programs in the US are designed to teach you what you need to know, for the most part.  Your job is to become comfortable with CS and some stats before you enter.  For example, here is what Carnegie Mellon posts as their 'requirements' for entering the PhD program:
' Unofficially, we recommend a high level of comfort with math (particularly linear algebra, probability, and proofs) and computer programming (at the level of an undergraduate degree in computer science, although many of our applicants get the necessary experience without majoring in CS).  It is possible to fill in some of this background on the fly, but you will be working hard to do so!  In addition, the program is very competitive, so successful applications always stand out in some way from their peers -- for example grades, research experience, or recommendation letters.'
I think SACHIN GARG's advice is very applicable to those with MS looking to find an industry job.  For academia, it will depend more on your sub-field, like SACHIN says.  For example, if you go into academic epidemiology, you may never have to write a line of SQL.  If you get a job as a bioinformatics data scientist, you almost absolutely will.
Answer: Aside from having a general background in Math and CS (which you do), PhD programs often ask why you want to join. When you say "I like ML" it is useful to be able to justify your claim. It doesn't have to be a formal course but having some familiarity with the subject will most certainly help. I recommend doing an online course to get a feel for the area & decide what exactly you might want to work with (you can change your decision later but you should have some concrete ideas/examples in your head).
I learned ML on Coursera and highly recommend it (the class is taught by Andrew Ng, one of Coursera's cofounders). However, there are many other courses, so pick the one that appeals to you the most. Good luck!


Replace vintage barrel nipple Shimano shifter cable

Question: My West German bike has an old friction shifter. The shifting cable snapped and I discovered the nipple is barrel shaped but horizontal, much like a MTB brake cable, but smaller. I can't figure out what this is called to find a replacement cable. I guess I could get a new shifter if I can't find this cable type?
.
Comment: Is that a wire, or is that a solid bar coming out of the "barrel" side ?  It might be weird and hard to find - do you desire to maintain originality?  It might work out easiest+cheapest to upgrade to a modern brake lever, but that may not have the same pull as your brake requires.   Good question!
Answer: It's a Shimano Positron shift cable.
The outer housing is also special.

Picture from WorthPoint.com
I found a few for sale on ebay - not an endorsement.
There were two Positron systems. The first one was very complicated. The since there was no return spring the rear derailleur had two cables to pull back and forth. The later version had one solid wire cable that could both push and pull. That's why the cable end is so strange. The posted question refers to the second version of Positron.
There were many bikes sold with Positron shifting. For example, there was a version of the Schwinn Suburban in the late 70s that had Positron shifting with the FFS or Front Freewheel System.
Page 15 of the 1978 Shimano catalog has pictures and information.
Comment: That's amazing, thank you for your wisdom.


Edit sitecore sxa sitemap

Question: I want to add an alternative link to one of the URLs on the generated sitemap.xml by SXA is there away to do that manually?
I have referred to that question but I think there may be a simpler way to do that rather than implementing my own SitemapGenerator
Answer: There are two things i would suggest here

Because i do not know for what purpose you want to have that extra URL, because as a best practice we should be only include the URLs which want the crawlers to crawl and which are for end user to see, and if you think your URL is such then i am just thinking why it is not in your content editor as an item so that sitemap will automatically generate it.

If point-1 is invalid and you think that URL should be there even if it is not there, you will need to have your own SIteMapGenerator patched to achieve this where you can write your own logic in the overrides

Let me know if that make sense

Edit sitecore sxa sitemap


Difference between sound and heat at particle level

Question: If heat (or thermal energy) are vibrations of particles and sound is a wave that is propagated through medium e.g vibration of air particles, what indicates if vibration of particles will be perceived as sound or heat (what is the difference between these vibrations) ?
Comment: Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/426698/why-does-fire-make-very-little-sound
Answer: Heat corresponds to random movements of atoms and molecules.  It travels only through conduction - slowly.  Sound consists of ordered movements, travelling through a medium as a wave (although it can also stand still, as in a standing wave).  Large numbers of atoms or molecules move back and forth in synchrony.  Sound eventually becomes random, as it is scattered around in many directions, and ultimately ends as heat.
Comment: so when there are random vibrations of invidual particles that is heat and when vibrations of invidual particles are in sync that is sound ? If that so why heat is not generated when particles vibrate in sync?
Answer: A qualitative picture of what happens in a gas can be made in terms of whether the behavior is random or non-random, oscillatory or steady.
Temperature describes the random motions of the particles that comprise some object. Correlations, if they exist, disappear rapidly with distance between particles. In an ideal gas, correlations don't exist, period.
Sound and gas flow (e.g., wind) are non-random behaviors. Behaviors between particles are correlated, and these correlations don't dissipate nearly as quickly as they do with temperature. The difference between sound and wind is that the behavior is oscillatory in the case of sound but steady in the case of a wind.

If heat (or thermal energy) are vibrations of particles and sound is a wave that is propagated through medium e.g vibration of air particles ...

This one sentence displays a number of misunderstandings.
Writing "heat (or thermal energy)" represents one of those misunderstandings. Do not confuse heat and thermal energy! Objects do have thermal energy, but they do not have "heat".
Consider what happens when an object as it is taken from some initial thermodynamical state to some final thermodynamical state. The change in the object's thermodynamical energy depends only on the initial and final states. How the object is taken from the initial state to the final state is irrelevant when it comes to energy. That is not the case with regard to heat and work. Here the path from the initial state to the final state dictates whether the energy transfer is in the form of work, heat, or both. It's erroneous to say that objects contain "heat" (or "work", for that matter) because work and heat are path dependent quantities.
The next problem is "vibration of particles." While this is how you need to look at a solid to understand temperature, this does not give a good picture of a gas. The concept of an ideal gas is the right place to look to gain an understanding of the thermodynamic behavior of a gas. Near-ideal gases have very small particles. Collisions occur between particles and the walls of the container of the gas; all such collisions are elastic. Ideal gases have extremely small particles; ideally they are point masses. Point masses don't collide with one another. They only collide with the walls of the container.
This simple picture of an ideal gas yield a very simple description of temperature and pressure as a consequence of the average speed of the point masses that comprise the gas. While that assumption of point masses is non-realistic, it can be amazingly accurate at times. Kinetic theory can be extended to some extent to describe real gases, where the particles aren't point masses. The place to start your studies is with an ideal gas, and then relax some of those overly simplistic assumptions. Most introductory calculus-based physics and introductory calculus-based chemistry texts do just that.
Answer: There's not much difference.   Thermal vibrations would be perceived as sound (noise) if they were intense enough,  but they are not.  The thermal vibration amplitudes at room temperature are small enough that the ear is not sensitive to them.
I've been told that the sound pressure level for thermal vibrations is close to, but below, the threshold of hearing, and that evolution proceeded in such a way as to suppress what would be noise everywhere.  I can't verify that ... could be a myth.
Comment: Why sound does not heat up the air?
Comment: I'd ask that as another question, might get more of an answer.
Comment: Eventually it does, as @akrasia has pointed out.  For details, though, pose a separate question.


Unable to copy/paste partition with GParted

Question: I have two identically sized partitions on my laptop's hard-drive (A and B we'll call them) so that when I'm ready to upgrade to a new major release of my OS on A, I can copy A to B for backup purposes, upgrade A and run on A from there.  If something goes wrong, I copy B back to A and start over.
Problem is, I'm unable to use GParted to copy partitions anymore.  I select my source partition in GParted and hit the Copy button and all seems good.  The problem is, GParted will not let me select Paste no matter what I do.  Both partitions are unmounted, and I've tried deleting the destination partition first and then selecting it, but Paste is still disabled.
I tried using parted (instead of GParted), and get the following:

(parted) cp /dev/sda 2 1
Error: File system has an incompatible feature enabled.  Compatible features are has_journal, dir_index, filetype, sparse_super and large_file.  Use tune2fs or debugfs to remove features.

I'm using a GParted live CD that has parted v1.8.8 and GParted v0.4.3.
Just for giggles, I downloaded the newest GParted live CD and had the exact same problem.  However, there I was unable to run parted because GParted no longer defaults to the root user when you start a console, and I don't know the root password.  Nice.  I'll deal with that later.
So, what am I doing wrong?
According to GParted:

    /dev/sda1    ext3    48.35GiB
    /dev/sda2    ext3    48.35GiB
    unallocated          7.38MiB
    /dev/sda3    swap    5.74GiB
    /dev/sda4    extended
      /dev/sda5  ext3    46.61GiB

How can I copy sda2 to sda1 here?
Answer: I think the error is quite self explanatory:
<code>(parted) cp /dev/sda 2 1
Error: File system has an incompatible feature enabled.  Compatible features are has_journal, dir_index, filetype, sparse_super and large_file.  Use tune2fs or debugfs to remove features.
</code>
Run:
<code>tune2fs -l /dev/sda2
</code>
to see what features you have enabled which aren't listed in the above. You can then think about disabling some.
The other option is dd but I don't think we want to go there...
Comment: You're most likely correct, but honestly, this is just sloppy.  gparted needs to support ext3 already.  It's been years...
Comment: gparted supports ext3 perfectly well in my experience. Run the command I suggest and lets see what options you have enabled :-)


Can I reboot my router while geth fast syncing?

Question: dumb question from noob here. I have started to sync with command geth --fast --cache=1024 for more than 3 days now, and I am still not finished syncing yet (still around 1 million again). Somehow I sense that my internet connection is getting slower with each day and I am wondering if I reboot my router it can help speed things up again.
So my questions are:
Is my internet get slower because of the sync process (my connection is in more than 30++ billion bytes);
if I reboot my router (not closing the console with geth process) in hoping that it can help speeding things up again (maybe it will clear the router cache, etc) do I need to redo my sync again?
Thanks for anyone who try to help, just completely confused now.
Answer:
...if I reboot my router (not closing the console with geth process)

If you want to do this, ensure that you stop the geth process first, then reboot your router. If you reboot your routing while geth is running, there's no guarantee you'll invoke any of its signal handing to close gracefully. This could result in a corrupt database.
See: Is it safe to kill geth with SIGTERM?

...do I need to redo my sync again?

No, as long as geth was closed cleanly, it will just pick up from where it left off. (This particular question has been asked before, though I can't find the link to it.)
Comment: Thanks man. finally I can have a safe mind. I follow you, I stop the geth (decided to use 'ctrl + c' since there are many conflicting articles about way to kill geth) then do rebooting router and stuff before starting again with geth --fast and it is indeed continue from the latest block :D
Answer: If you close geth and start it, it will not restart in --fast mode. That can only be done the first time.
I would restart the router without restarting geth, but at the same time, it's very unlikely that the router is the source of the problem.
You can consider either just leaving it running until it's done or use a website like myetherwallet.com which doesn't require the user to download the blockchain but still provide them with the private keys.


What is the most efficient way to get your instrument rating?

Question: For someone that has recently completed their private pilot SEL, what would be the suggested next steps/process to getting instrument rated as efficiently as possible (both time and money)?
Comment: It would be similar to the most efficient way to get your private pilot license.
Answer: The fastest path to any rating is intensive training.
If you can take time off from work and do an "accelerated instrument training" program you can probably knock out the rating in less than a month. That AOPA article says 8 days, I've seen a lot of two-week courses advertised.
Note however that there's a difference between being instrument rated and proficient for real-world IFR operations in actual IMC. These courses will almost certainly cram all the knowledge and procedures into your head that are required to get you to pass your instrument checkride, but you may have never flown an approach in actual IMC (if suitable weather doesn't pop up for you to fly in your time will all be simulated under the hood), and because everything is compressed and focused on "passing the test" you may come out of the program lacking the confidence to actually go out and use your newfound rating without doing some additional work with a local CFI (this is a point sometimes raised by pilots who have gone through these accelerated training programs).
Comment: you also need to get the written out of the way in advance.
Comment: ***VERY*** good point about time in actual IMC; if you can get it as part of your instrument rating, *DO IT*.   The hood can simulate a low ceiling with good visibility (such as stratus clouds w/o precip or fog underneath), but it *can't* simulate a bad-vis situation such as an ILS to 2000 RVR in an indefinite-ceiling fogbank or having to do a VOR/DME into 800' ceilings and 1.5mile vis in driving rain.
Comment: @rbp A few of the two-week courses actually include the written - but I expect those courses require a certain masochistic tendency in order to complete them
Answer: Well for money, the military is the most efficient.  For time, just getting it done as fast as possible (one of those 10 week/summer programs) and showing up to each lesson prepared.  For being extremely confident in IMC flying, again, the military.


Telling my manager that he made a huge budgeting mistake

Question: I have a very good relationship with my manager but he is clumsy and takes details for granted. Today he sent me a spreadsheet and - by accident - he sent the budgeting allocations for 2014 in it (I was not supposed to see it as I'm a consultant/contractor and not an employee). The huge mistake he has done in the budget WILL affect the whole team including me.
How do I go about telling him his mistake?
Comment: @MeredithPoor: I'm a little uncomfortable the idea that "Something that obvious will get fixed." In some contexts, it can be too easy for *everyone* to assume that someone else will catch an error.
Comment: Something that obvious will get fixed.  When he passes that to the bean counters, they're going to tell him to check his math.
Comment: I can't imagine making such a math blunder and not appreciating someone bringing it to my attention before sending it off to my boss or making a bad business decision because of it.
Comment: How do you know it's a mistake?
Comment: He calculated the hourly rates for 37.5 hours per month per person ending up with a ~200k budget instead of ~800k budget.
Answer: I would sit down with him in person (alone) and present the matter in the form of a question along the lines of " Hey "X", I got a copy of the budget emailed to me. Did you want me to do something with it?" That way you are being a "good" contractor by confirming that you are checking to see if he really DID want you to see it.
If he asks if you looked at, admit that you have and then point out the error. If he doesn't, then simply don't point it out. Obviously, his work will be checked by others, so the error(s) will be caught when it is. As a contractor, and not  an employee, you have no involvement in the budget; nor should you want any.
Answer:
How do I go about telling him his mistake?

If your relationship is good enough, it's simple.
You simply say "Hey, boss. You made two whopping mistakes today. First, you sent me your budget for 2014. But more important, [include the details that you think are problematic here]. Just wanted to let you know."
If you aren't sure your relationship is good enough, then just ignore it. Respond only if your boss realizes his mistake and asks you about the details in the spreadsheet. Technically, you probably shouldn't have read the details once you realized the spreadsheet wasn't supposed to be delivered to you.
Budgets are usually closely checked along the way, so mistakes like these will likely be caught by someone else. He might be embarrassed by those mistakes, but they aren't likely fatal.
Comment: I think this is great advice - stopping your boss finding out about the mistake in front of his boss is also good for your boss - he *should* appreciate it
Comment: If confidentiality is a problem perhaps you should remove your comment to your question? You might be giving out too much information.
Comment: As @JoeStrazzere said, i would be very careful with that. "Only you can prevent corporate espionage."
Comment: It is actually our case! it is VERY bad as I work for a large bank. but I don't want my manager to get embarrassed. I was thinking about NOT sending anything in email and telling him in person but he is on vacation today.
Answer: In the corporate world, especially as you indicated with a political environment, "No good deed goes unpunished."  That's especially true for good deeds that were unasked for.  Relationships are more important than "helping when not asked to help."  And relationships are based more on soft skills and regular "feel good" interactions and talking instead of "helping someone with a business matter".

You did work on something without being asked to do it, which - based on context - itself could be going out on a limb.
First let your manager know you got the email, and ask if he wanted you to look at it.  If it could be a problem with him even sending it to you, then ask in person, very casually and quickly and privately.
If he says yes then go back to your desk and give it a reasonable but quick amount of time before you come back to him with your "discovery".  Send it back in email with a caveat "I'm not sure if this is an issue but I noticed...is that what was intended?"
Focus more on dependability and productivity in regards to what your manager asks you to do instead of "being the teacher's pet helper."  I don't know if that's where you are coming from or not, but sometimes the desire to "help when not asked" can be based on a lack of social/political awareness and wanting to "score points" with your boss, which in my experience can indicate a narrow view of relationship building.
Answer: Simple, save yourself and manager, it was sent to you so take the assumption that he intended to send and check the numbers and give him the feedback asking if he wants you to revise.  Do it over email so that it is documented in order to avoid any accusations.
Comment: You might also want to save his/her ego and phrase feedback "I believe you were given wrong calculation as total is incorrect based on the hours mentioned".  And one more thing, if the budget contains any pay information or personal employee information do not bother responding to the email and let it be.....


Is it ok to do wudhu instead of taking a bath?

Question: I have a friend she has a phobia of bathing whenever she has to take a bath her cousin helps her in that because while bathing she suffers from anxiety attacks which makes it not possible for her to take a bath alone ....now her cousin is not available for 1 day can she just make a wudhu instead of a ghusl till her cousin returns and helps her in taking a bath?
Comment: As Ibraheem Muhammad's answer says, she only needs to do ghusl when it is required because of greater ritual impurity. Also note that private parts are awrah between people of the same gender, so her cousin should not be able to look at them.
Comment: Salam and welcome to IslamSE the Q&A site about Islam. To learn more about our site and model i.e. what is on- and what is off-topic here I suggest you to take the [Tour] and check our [help].
Answer: It depends on the level of her ritual impurity.  If she has had sexual  intercourse (with or without ejaculation), or if she is menstruating, or if she is suffering from postpartum bleeding (after childbirth) then she is in a state of major ritual impurity (janabat) and she is obligated to make ghusl. In the case of menstruation and postpartum bleeding the sister is obligated to make ghusl after they cease. May Allahu ta alaa ease her anxiety and help her perfect her Deen.


Connection of "modern" runtimes and number of steps on a Turing machine

Question: Why an evaluation of Turing machine efficiency is equal to the algorithm which is implemented by this machine and vise versa? For example, we can say that efficiency of merge sorting algorithm is O(nlog(n)) and therefore Turing machine which implements this algorithm will do O(nlog(n)) steps. Why is this conclusion correct? And vise versa: if there's no deterministic Turing machine which takes less than exponential number of steps to solve some problem, we aren't able to find efficient algorithm solving this problem.
Answer: Your premise that turing machines can implement algorithms with the same efficiency as a modern computer is not correct.
Turing machines can simulate 'enhanced' turing machines that have the properties of modern computers (e.g. random access into memory, multiple memory spaces, etc) with only polynomial slowdown.
However, not all problems can be solved exactly as fast on a turing machine. For example, consider the problem PALINDROME to determine if the input is a palindrome. On a modern computer there is an obvious $O(n)$ algorithm, where you just read the front and back character, and if they match recurse on the inner substring. This problem is known to require $\Omega(n^2)$ time for a classical turing machine to solve. This means turing machines are decidedly "weaker" by some amount compared to an ideal modern computer.
Comment: "In some books authors say that NP problems are problems that can't be solved in polynomial time." -- that is wrong. Read again. If they actually say so, *don't read these books*.
Comment: As I said, a turing machine can simulate a modern machine with polynomial slowdown -- thus, if a modern machine can solve a problem in, say, $O(n^3)$, then a turing machine can solve it within $O(n^5)$ or so. In other words, multiplying two polynomials always gives you a polynomial, so in terms of polytime vs not-polytime we may as well treat TMs and modern machines as the same thing even though they are not exactly the same.
Comment: OK. In some books authors say that NP problems are problems that can't be solved in polynomial time. They consider algorithms at all, not only turing machine. But strict definition of NP problems is only about turing machines - there's no deterministic turing machine that solves problem in polynomial time. So, why does nonexistence of polynomial turing machine causes nonexistence of polynomial algorithm?
Comment: Thank you very much! Where can I read more about this conclusion "turing machine can simulate a modern machine with polynomial slowdown"? Where can I read about correlation of abstract mathematical models of a computer and real modern computers?
Comment: I should clarify that by 'simulate a modern machine', I mean simulate another turing machine that has all the properties of a modern machine, such as random access memory, partitioned memory spaces, etc.

You can learn more about the proofs of these simulations in any book on complexity theory, such as http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Approach-Sanjeev-Arora/dp/0521424267/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239836395&sr=8-1 (this book is pretty tough and mathematical, but rigorous)


Is there a name for this PERT-like project management status chart?

Question: I know of a long-standing program where a particular format of project status chart has been in use for more than a decade. It was originally created to status the assembly sequence of a complex device (M) and thus acquired the name "M" Assembly Sequence Chart (MASC).
Although this chart format has since been re-purposed to status all sorts of projects with complicated dependencies, the acronym has stuck and MASC is all I know it by. Does this type of chart have a common industry name? I'm trying to learn more about it and look for tools to help me create automatically and status them.

I know it looks similar to a classic PERT chart, but I see a few key differences and am wondering if these particular specializations are codified in their own variant. For example:

The PERT chart focuses on spans, which is useful for generating a schedule and understanding the critical path. The MASC is used once the schedule has been established and is used to show progress against dates.
The MASC uses color codes to show progress, rather than schedule data like critical path
In practice, when estimated or actual start and finish dates don't line up with the plan the old dates are not removed but struck-through and the new date put above (although this isn't shown in the example).
Answer: This appears to be a cross between a schedule network diagram and a swimlane process map.  Both of these views do different things.  I am wondering what the value is trying to breed them.  Also, I have never seen anyone report status against it.  Very interesting.


'Patriotism' is to 'Country' as ______ is to 'Language'

Question: I have been looking for a word to describe a group of people that are very loyal and passionate about their (native) language.
Comment: A lot of _nationalists_ define the group they're passionate for by language. Might that fit?
Comment: Please edit your title to emphasise that one's **native** language rather than language in general is meant. 'Patriotism' is to '[one's native] Country' as ______ is to '[one's native] Language'
Comment: native language lovers, native language linguaphiles
Answer: I couldn't find a single word, but a good example of what you are describing are the Gaelic language revivalists in Ireland. The term that appears most often is "language enthusiast".  See below
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Irish_language
Comment: More specifically _Irish_ language enthusiasts. As with _logophile_ further down on the page, a language enthusiast in itself might well be someone who's enthusiastic about language in general (in fact, that would be how I'd naturally read it) rather than specifically about their own native language. And of course you don't have to be a native Irish-speaker to be an Irish language enthusiast (I am definitely the latter, but sadly not the former, for instance). So while this is a term that can be used to describe such people, it's not really a direct answer to the question.
Answer: The word chauvinism could be used aptly in such a circumstance along with a suitable descriptor. Note that it is usually used in a negative light.
Chauvinism refers to extreme prejudiced support for some cause.
So, linguistic chauvinism for language would be similar to patriotism for country.
Comment: I think this one is the best answer since there seems be no such single term.
Answer: I don't know if this works for all languages, and it doesn't quite fit your phrase with the blank, but Yiddishist works specifically for Yiddish.

Yiddishism: a movement characterized by advocacy of the Yiddish language and culture

(The advocacy is needed because Yiddish is dying out.)
Answer: That would be a logophile http://www.dictionary.com/browse/logophile

noun
  1. a lover of words

Or, to fill in your title question, 'Patriotism' is to 'Country' as 'Logophilia' is to 'Language'.
Comment: No; a logophile may be even more enthusiastic about foreign languages. And even the title question indicates that it's one's _native_ language that is implied (patriotism is to ...).


How can I make the length decrease constant between each object when using array modifier and object offset?

Question: I'm trying to make a wicker weave for a chair I'm modelling, and am using an array modifier with object offset to model part of it. The issue is that the step size between each instance of the array isn't constant, so I'm getting this exponential looking curve at the edge, when what I really need is closer to a straight line (which I've annotated in the attached screenshot). If anyone has any idea how to make the step size constant or knows an alternative way of doing this, that would be much appreciated! Thanks, Rowan
Comment: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/25944/2214
Comment: I wanted to offer Dupliframes https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/editors/3dview/object/properties/duplication/dupliframes.html , but this feature was lost in 2.8+ ... But Animation nodes could be an alternative for you https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/136670/2214 or in this time also Geometry nodes ?
Comment: Hi vklidu, thanks for your answer. I did see the post about the pyramid generator, is it possible to use custom objects with it, rather than the standard cuboid it uses?
Answer: 2.79
Natively in 2.79 you can use Dupliframes under 2.79 for this step. Create first keyframe, last keyframe of location and scale and enable under Object Properties > Duplication > Frames

Or you can use script (by Chebhou). It generates separated objects, that shares the same object data, so you can easily edit original data (shape) to affect all those objects or simply change object data to completely different one. Like if script generates a cube you can switch to Torus object data or what ever under Data Properties. But I see script works in 2.79 ...
2.9+
For 2.9x you would have to use something like Animation Nodes like Ligazeton's example. Or probably in experimental build you can try Geometry Nodes.


What happens when linear phase is critical?

Question: I am studying the topic digital filters. And in the slides it said,"if linear phase is not critical, Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters yield a much smaller filter order for a given application". So what does it mean ?
Answer: Causal IIR (infinite impulse response) filters cannot have a linear phase response, so they can only be used if (exactly) linear phase is not required. Unlike IIR filters, FIR (finite impulse response) filters can have a linear phase response (and, consequently, a constant group delay). So in applications where a linear phase is required, we have to choose FIR filters.
A non-linear phase response causes signal dispersion because different frequency components experience a different delay when being filtered. E.g., in many audio applications a linear phase is not required (although in some it might be), whereas in digital communications, a non-linear phase would cause neighboring symbols to interfere with each other (inter-symbol interference, ISI), so a linear phase is important.
Note that it is possible to design IIR filters with an approximately linear phase in the pass band (as shown in this answer). For many practical applications this might be good enough, and it might save a lot of computational complexity and memory compared to a linear phase FIR filter with a comparable magnitude response.
As mentioned in MBaz's comment, more details on applications where a linear phase may or may not be required can be found in the answers to this question .
Answer: Nonlinear Phase is another way to say dispersion. The frequencies of the input signal have different delay.
FIR filters that have odd or even symmetry are linear phase. This was very interesting when DSP started  being adopted because Analog filters aren't linear phase. This was one of those DSP being able to do something that Analog couldn't do ( in a conventional circuit).
While IIR filters require fewer multiply adds, on a superscalar pipelined processor, recursions, needing to wait for a result before computing the next term causes a lot of NOP cycles, so it depends on the processor which is more efficient.


Batch size affecting my Final Gravity?

Question: So i recently fermented a pale ale but only was able to transfer just under 4 gallons of my planned 5.5 gallons into my fermenter due to transfer issues. My final gravity is shooting past my 1.018 estimate and is creeping towards 1.010 and is finally slowing down. So my question is with my lower amount of beer the reason my fermentation is going that direction?
Comment: If you provide the specifics of the recipe, including grist, mash time, and yeast strain, this information would be extremely helpful to diagnose what is happening.
Answer: No, batch size should not be what is taking the final gravity low.
I would question first why you expect an FG of 1.018.  That estimate is likely inaccurate but depends most of all on the specifics of the recipe including grist, mash time, and yeast strain.
Also, you say you have brewed a pale ale.  Assuming this is dry hopped, be aware that hops contain enzymes, which if not boiled will be present in the fermenting beer and can break down complex sugars into simpler sugars which the yeast will break down to more alcohol and carbonation.  This effect is known as "hop creep", and is very likely part of the effect you are seeing here.
Answer: If you use the same amount of yeast in a smaller batch, you would expect a faster fermentation, and perhaps a lower final gravity.   When making a strong beer (like a Belgian Triple, etc.) it is common practice to pitch a lot of yeast to ensure good fermentation that fully completes.
That said, a final gravity of 1.018 seems very high for a pale ale (on a sweet stout or very strong beer - sure). Whereas 1.010 sounds like a fine stopping point for a pale ale.

Batch size affecting my Final Gravity?


Can a Workgroup name have embedded spaces, or should it be one word only?

Question: The workgroup here has two words, rather than the single word like MSHOME. Is there a problem with it having an embedded space?
Answer: You can have Workgroup names with spaces, the only caveat is that machines older than Windows 2000, so ME, 98, 95 etc, will not support it and cannot join that work group. Also if you use a space, when it comes to using the workgroup name from the command line, you will need to enclose it in quotes.
Answer: Also be wary of any third-party software that may have been written with the assumption that there are no spaces.
Answer: Workgroup name originally didn't allow for spaces. Yes it can have spaces these days but it's certainly not recommended. Win2K and later will deal with it. Win9X will mostly deal with it but can be somewhat unpredictable. In most cases non-Windows machines will not be happy about it. Do yourself a favour and keep it as a single word, that way you will not need to worry about problems. As has already pointed out, software will be more hit and miss.


Should there be categories related to instruction?

Question: I was wondering if there should be some categories related to instruction. I'm going to be asking more and more questions (like this one) related to instructing aviation knowledge and related to instructor activities. In many cases they'll apply to another category. Just brainstorming here.
Answer: I would tend to lean toward "no" because I fear it would be abused by folks asking for instruction (or about off-topic things related to instruction, like "Which flight school should I pick?" rather than "How should I go about selecting a flight school?")
Along the same lines I would probably phrase questions/answers like that one a little differently ("What equipment is required for (type of flight)?" => "You need xxxxx per FAR yyyyy. A convenient mnemonic to remember this is zzzzz"), but that's just a matter of personal preference so they fit into the neat little tagging buckets we already have :)
Comment: Good call. I'm with you.


What is the difference between experimental and amateur built aircraft in the US?

Question: What is the difference between experimental amateur and amateur built aircraft in the US, or are they the same?
If not, is there a difference re specifications, inspections, engines, passengers, etc.?
Comment: Amateur built are always experimental, but experimental is not always amateur built. Other than that I don't think there are many differences. Are you asking in terms of inspections? Qualifications to fly? Limitations on flight? There are a number of "experimental" categories in FAA land (like experimental-amateur built or experimental-exhibition only)...
Answer: The FAA provides pretty clear definitions and/or explanations:
Amateur built:

Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR), part 21, section
  21.191(g), defines an amateur-built aircraft as an aircraft "the major portion of which has been fabricated and assembled by person(s) who
  undertook the construction project solely for their own education or
  recreation."

They define Experimental as a category, since it has to do with how the airworthiness cert is issued:

A special airworthiness certificate in the experimental category is
  issued to operate an aircraft that does not have a type certificate or
  does not conform to its type certificate and is in a condition for
  safe operation.  Additionally, this certificate is issued to operate a
  primary category kit-built aircraft that was assembled without the
  supervision and quality control of the production certificate holder.

And further

Special airworthiness certificates may be issued in the experimental
  category for:

Operating amateur-built aircraft: to operate an
  amateur-built aircraft in which the major portion has been fabricated
  and assembled by persons for their own recreation or education.
Operating kit-built aircraft:  to operate a primary category aircraft
  that was assembled by a person from a kit manufactured by the holder
  of a production certificate for that kit, without the supervision and
  quality control of the production certificate holder.

So... All amateur built aircraft are experimental (flown under an experimental airworthy type certificate) but not all experimental's are amateur built, for example a pre-production aircraft may need to be registered as an experimental for test flights before a type certificate is received.
Answer: "Experimental" was originally applied to development test aircraft only.  The application of the term to amateur builts is an artifact of the early days of homebuilding in the early 50s, when the Civil Aviation Authority (FAA's predecessor) was persuaded to create a formal licensing structure for amateur built airplanes created for personal use, and they decided to piggyback on the existing Experimental category normally used for test aircraft, as the path of least bureaucratic effort.
So you have a somewhat odd categorization, done nowhere else, where airplanes NOT created for development and testing, but just built for people to have fun and fly, still have EXPERIMENTAL plastered on the side.
In Canada the homebuilt category was originally called "Ultralight", but then in the 70s actual ultralights appeared on the scene and the name wasn't really suited to 180 mph airplanes like Thorp T-18s, so a new Amateur Built catagory was created to cover traditional homebuilts, with ultralights just ultralights.
Answer: As I understand it (I am not a pilot, nor do I live in the US) in the US:
"amateur built" is a subset of "experimental".
"experimental" aircraft are assesed and issued with airworthyness certificates on an individual basis under requirements less rigorous than the normal type-certification process. However the FAA doesn't want manufacturers using experimental certification as a way to do an end-run round the normal certification process, so they put limits on what aircraft can be registered as "experimental".
"amateur built" is a subset of experimental for aircraft that are more than 51% built by amateurs and is one of the least restrictive experimental categories.
Another subcategory of experimental that the aviation hobbyist may run into is "experimental exhibition", this category is often used for ex-warbirds and is also sometimes used as a means to heavily customize aircraft. The downside as I understand it is you have to convince the FAA that you will genuinely be using the aircraft for exhibition purposes.
Regarding passengers as I understand it no experimental aircraft is allowed to carry passengers for hire and some are not allowed to carry passengers at all. As I understand it amateur builts are allowed to carry passengers not for hire after passing some additional testing/proving.  I don't know if the rules on carrying passengers are different for other types of experimental.


"Correct" way to bold/italicize text?

Question: Is either of these considered better/more readable/more "proper"/more conventional than the other for making text bold? If so, what is the reason?
I like my text \textbf{bold}

versus:
I like my text {\bf bold}

Comment: It is very simple: DO NOT USE `\bf` IN MODERN LaTeX DOCUMENTS! It is deprecated. Use `\bfseries` instead, which will work properly under the New Font Selection Scheme (NFSS) of LaTeX2e. About `\textbf` vs. `\bfseries`: There is no real difference, except that the latter will not read the text as argument and therefore work with verbatim content, but there you hardly use bold font anyway. See [Does it matter if I use \textit or \it](http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/516) and [Will two-letter font style commands (\bf , \it , …) ever be resurrected in LaTeX?](http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/15361).
Comment: As much as I respect the incredible help that experts on TeX.SE provide, I don't find commandments we *must* use such and such newer function helpful.  The deprecated functions have been deprecated for many years, and as far as I can tell they are not going away.  I do appreciate answers such as some of those here that spell out the tradeoffs between older and newer functions.
Comment: **tl;dr: use `\textbf`/`\textit`/`\emph`**.
Comment: To continue, a fundamental drawback of newer commands like `\textbf` is that they clutter up the text that I am actually editing, compared to the old, short commands.  I do appreciate the benefits of the new commands, and I can define abbreviations for them. But that's a necessary step for me.  And everyone else can define other abbreviations, so the advantage of LaTeX as a lingua franca of technical writing (as opposed to that other ... thing--Word) is reduced.
Answer: Marc van Dongen gave a great answer.  I'll throw in another reason:
\it and \bf do not play well together.  That is, they do not nest as one would intuitively expect:

Whereas \textit and \textbf do play well together:

This is nice. However, you may notice that it still fails to handle nested style adjustments to small caps, since the Computer Modern fonts do not contain slanted or bold small caps:

If this is a problem for you, then use the slantsc package in combination with the lmodern package.  slantsc provides, among other things, \rmfamily (roman), \ttfamily (typewriter/teletype), \sffamily (sans-serif), \bfseries (boldface), \itshape (italics), \slshape (slant/oblique), and \scshape (small caps).  With these, small caps can obtained in slanted form:

As a bonus, slantsc fixes \textsl to behave properly with \textsc, so you can continue using those if you like.
Alas, I haven't yet found a package which fixes the behavior of nested instances of \textit.  In typesetting, when you nest italics, you're supposed to come back out of italics to roman. For example, the word "Titanic" below is in nested italics (which should ideally render as roman, not italics):

Tanaka, Shelly. On Board the Titanic: What It Was Like When the Great Liner
  Sank. New York, NY: Hyperion/Madison Press, 1998.

As a workaround, one can usually write \textrm to temporarily return to non-italics in those cases, but of course this is only valid if you know the exact number of nested italic levels, which may not always be the case, especially inside a macro.
Update:
As others have pointed out, \textit and \textsl do automatic italic correction, whereas \it, \itshape, \sl, and \slshape do not.  Thus, you can write \textit{stuff}, but you must write {\it stuff\/} or {\itshape stuff\/} to get the same effect.
Comment: Rather than nesting \textit{...} you should use \emph{...} which correctly reverts to roman inside of italics.
Comment: See above: _Don't use_ `\bf` or `\it`.
Answer: In general the command (\textbf/\textit) approach is more useful if the text is followed by more text on the same line and isn't followed by a small punctuation symbol. If the text is in a paragraph on its own or is followed by a small punctuation symbol, it doesn't matter really. In that case the declarations (\bf/\bfseries and \it/\itshape) are equivalent to the commands. As pointed out be others, the declarations \bf and \it are deprecated and should be avoided.
To see why the commands should be preferred, notice that \textit inserts an italic correction at the end, which adds a small horizontal compensation if the text ends in letters with long ascenders that would otherwise run into the next character. The declarations (\it and \itshape) don't insert an italic correction.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth row in the following shows why the commands may differ from the declarations. In the fourth row you get a proper italic correction, in the fifth and the sixth you don't and this results in the ff ligature running in to the h.
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}
  \Huge
  \begin{tabular}{lll}
    \toprule
    \verb|\textbf{fluff} hair|    & \textbf{fluff} hair
  \\\verb|{\bf fluff} hair|       & {\bf fluff} hair
  \\\verb|{\bfseries fluff} hair| & {\bfseries fluff} hair
  \\\midrule
    \verb|\textit{fluff} hair|    & \textit{fluff} hair
  \\\verb|{\itshape fluff} hair|  & {\itshape fluff} hair
  \\\verb|{\it fluff} hair|       & {\it fluff} hair
  \\\bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{document}

Comment: `\documentclass{memoir}\begin{document}\bf bold` results in an error. Classes are *not* required to support the two letter commands, so I think it's better to avoid them altogether.
Comment: See above: _DONT_ _USE_ `\bf` - they come from LaTeX 2.09, which is _OBSOLETE_.
Answer: First of all you should not use the obsolete \bf or \it macros from LaTeX2.0. They do not use the new font selection scheme (NFSS) of LaTeX2e. So \bf will do bold and bold only, but will not mix with an italic setting, which makes bold-italic impossible. Use the new \bfseries macro instead.
There is not much practical difference between \textbf{<content>} and {\bfseries <content>}. I would say most people use (for short texts) the first usage because it follows the common \somemacro{<content>} LaTeX style. The latter should be used if you want to make the rest of an environment/group bold, of course.
You should note that \textbf uses \bfseries internal, so the latter is a more fundamental macro.
The definition of \textbf is:
\ifmmode
  \nfss@text {\bfseries #1}%
\else
  \hmode@bgroup
  \text@command {#1}%
  \bfseries \check@icl #1\check@icr
  \expandafter
  \egroup
\fi

So \textbf switches to text mode inside math mode, while \bfseries apparently doesn't.
It also adds checks for italic correction before and after the content, which is a great feature of LaTeX2e.
One benefit of \bfseries is that it doesn't read the content as an argument, which would interfere with catcode changes required by verbatim content and other special code.
In summary I recommend \textbf for smaller texts, mainly because of the italic correction, and in math mode. \bfseries is IMHO more intended for environments and larger texts. One notable exception is if you have bold and italic (etc.) combinations, then you could write \textit{\bfseries <content>}, to avoid two sets of braces, but this is more a fashion choice. You should not use \bf in modern LaTeX documents.

"Correct" way to bold/italicize text?


How do I hide the List Items from a SharePoint Promoted Links list using JSOM?

Question: One of the Requirements I am working on right now, I am using a SharePoint list form to create sharepoint sites with a template. The form also has fields like Asset URL, Stage (choice column with choices: Development, Transition and Property), Template field and an Asset Description field. Please see below screenshot for the form.

its the OOTB form I am using from a SharePoint list and using JSOM code, when clicked on save it creates a site and redirects me to that site's landing page.
Please note that I am passing the Stage Value in the Asset Description field. So based on the values entered in the above form, when i click on save in the form and check the site description of the created site, it would look like below:

So now what I wanna do is, the site that gets created has a promoted links
list with four links(part of the  template), which I am showing in form of tiles on the landing page of this newly created site. Please see below screenshots for reference.

Below is how the site's landing page would look like:

The challenging task is when a Site Description field of that site is updated to keyword Property, I would like to hide 2 list items from this promoted links list. I have a JSOM code that updates the site description field when a user changes the Stage Column value from either Development or Transition to Property using another collaboration list. So the site description field will be updated once in a while to something like: Property;Testing out the site provision (considering above example I gave). So when this happens I would like to hide Listitems with title Acquisition and Approvals. Maybe ID can be used here to hide the list items but not sure how to do it.
Please help me about a JSOM solution for this as I am working with Office 365/SharePoint online. Thanks in advance.
Answer: why don't you change the promoted links to normal html links or buttons that can be hidden on event, and attach the event to the previous control using jquery ?
Edit:
To hide a promoted link tile:
replace "#Tile_WPQ3_2_1" with the id of the tile you want to hide
to find the tile ID i would recommend use the browser inspector.
$("#Tile_WPQ3_2_1").style.display="none";
you will still need to attach this piece of code to an event.
Comment: I want to leverage the OOTB SharePoint tiles because that's what client is willing to see. So can't go that route. Thanks.
Comment: hope this helps : $("#Tile_WPQ3_2_1").style.display="none";


Do Samsung batteries actually charge to 100% capacity?

Question: My understanding on Li-on batteries is that they don't like to be charged to 100% capacity and that it can prematurely degrade the battery. Something to do with voltage increasing and heat at the last 10% charging capacity? Do Samsung allow their batteries to be charged to an actual 100% capacity or do they actually only charge to 80% but appear as 100% to the user/consumer?
Comment: You should check out [this answer](https://android.stackexchange.com/a/5839/270645).
Answer: First, a battery is not like a watter bottle with a clear, definite capacity. It's more like a balloon that you can charge more than it's designed for, but if you overcharge it, it gets damaged. There's a threshold that the battery manufacturer thinks "safe to charge to", and that's what you're presented with.
Comment: Why do people still recommend charging Li-on batteries in phones/devices to 80% then?
Comment: @Kol12 I never heard that. Usually I just leave my phone plugged when I'm at home or office. Li-ion batteries really don't need that much care.
Comment: Take a read of this: https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries


booting up in safe mode (hp zv600)

Question: What is the easiest way to boot up in safe mode? It seems like I have a lot of
trouble doing so.
Answer: Just Googled the specification and out the box, it runs Windows XP. Providing you haven't installed another non Microsoft OS, follow these instructions:
To get to safe mode in XP, just press F8 the moment that the picture/text of the BIOS has finished, but before the Windows flag logo comes up.
You should then be able to select safe mode as a option.
If you keep missing it, keep pressing F8 every second from the moment you turn on the machine. You may hear warning beeping, however it should still work.
Comment: I just press and hold F8.
Comment: It's going to be F8 on any modern MS operating system.

booting up in safe mode (hp zv600)


Are there any differences between 仕事 and 作業

Question: I have ran across these two words being used in some articles and blog sites. It seems they both translate to "work", but when and why would you use one over the other?
Answer: 作業 is closer to tasks or procedures, which can be 'finished' in a few minutes or a few days.
仕事 refers to both small tasks and lifelong vocations.
If you want to ask someone's occupation, you can say "あなたの仕事は何ですか?" but not "あなたの作業は何ですか?" (well, let's forget about honorific expressions for now). When you look at a calendar and want to check what you have to do today, you ask yourself, "今日の仕事は何だろう?" or "今日の作業は何だろう?"
Comment: Thanks for the useful clarifications! I should've mentioned that most of the blogs I've read with 作業 are usually people working on a side project or hobby so they usually update their progress with 作業.


Ideal settings for rdesktop?

Question: For connecting to a Windows 7 virtual machine on a LAN, what would be the ideal settings to specify when using rdesktop in linux so that it feels as close as possible to using a regular Windows 7 machine? And is there anything I should configure on the Windows VM?
Answer: It takes some tweaking. The command-line I'm using in a shortcut for my VMWare VM Win7 admin station is :
/usr/local/bin/rdesktop -d $domain -u $username -g 1270x972 -z -r sound:local -P -x l $hostname
Works pretty solidly. I had to compile a newer rdesktop since the one that comes with my distro is a bit old. Pretty snappy. Still not as snappy as talking to XP, but markedly better than it is with no special options.
Comment: the sound from remote machine is a bit choppy and laggy.
Comment: There is some discussion of `-P` (bitmap caching) at https://superuser.com/questions/6962/what-does-the-bitmap-caching-option-do-in-the-remote-desktop-client
Answer: I came upon this after investigating various sources. Here's what I use:
rdesktop -u USERNAME -d DOMAINNAME -p - -g 1680x1050 -a 24 -z -x 0x80 -D -r clipboard:PRIMARYCLIPBOARD -r sound:remote MACHINENAME

-x 0x80 will allow clear type tuning to work (see here) assuming you have Windows XP SP3, Vista or 7 as the server.
If you get a warning saying 24 bit color depth is not allowed, you will need to use the group policy edtor on the server machine to change the Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services -> "Limit maximum color depth" setting. (see here)
I forgot to mention, on Windows XP, you will also need to add a DWORD value to your registry: AllowFontAntiAlias with value 1 at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp (source) and restart your machine.
The above also removed windows manager decorations and passes all keys (Ctrl+Alt+Del etc.) to the Windows machine. I have the resolution explicitly specified in place of using full screen mode on rdesktop to prevent it from taking over both monitors.
Answer: After some grief, I've switched to using xfreerdp - it lacks a lot of the issues rdesktop has with the more modern windows builds, and feels a bit faster (might be wrong here)
Answer: It looks like all the answers share something like these options in common:

-x lan: Let rdesktop know you have a good connection
-P: Let rdesktop cache bitmaps
-z: Let rdesktop use compression
Answer: I like to add the -f option instead of the -g <dimensions>, as it enables the Full Screen mode.
Then you can use CTRL + ALT + ENTER to toggle Full Screen.

Ideal settings for rdesktop?


What is the label associated with AirBNB?

Question: How does one write no AirBNB into a rental contract that AirBNB or the like is forbidden?  Is this merely a form of subleasing?  Assume a venue of Florida.
Answer: How about "no subletting" or "no short-term subletting" or "no short term rentals".  You can, of-course, make a term which mentions AirBNB specifically, but that may not yield the desired affect as there are other similar options.
Note that just putting something into a rental contract does not necessarily make it legal or otherwise, and the legality will depend on where you are.  In some places, forbidding AirBNB would be considered a breach of the right to quiet enjoyment, in others, having an AirBNB allowing AirBNB may incur additional council fees.
Comment: Is there an example where breach of right to quiet enjoyment includes subletting (AirBNB)?  Links in the above post would be appreciated.  Thanks
Comment: @gatorback - I have not been able to find a link to that, but my thinking is colored by the Melbourne Australian reporting on Owners Corporation 501391P v Balcombe.


Is there an adapter which allows an ethernet wired printer to be connected via wifi instead?

Question: I bought a printer that needs to be connected to the network through ethernet cable, unfortunately the ethernet entry is in a completely different part of our office, which would require really long wiring to connect. Is there an adapter I can buy that will allow me to connect the printer to the network via wifi?
(the printer has a USB port)
Comment: Have you ruled out printer sharing? All you need to do is plug the USB port into a computer that is already on that network. Sharing a printer through windows is effectively the same as using the ethernet for most printers. Just make sure the hosting PC is not turned off.
Comment: @Romen IFF there are open source drivers even a Pi would do.
Answer: You can find the answer to your question on this same SE:
Transmitting an NIC to NIC Ethernet connection wirelessly 30-50ft
The device requires a power source and has a USB connector for that purpose. If your printer does not provide power at its USB port, you can use a conventional AC to USB adapter.
I can attest that the device works as advertised, but does not tolerate weak Wifi signals very well.
Comment: Your answer doesn't actually state the name of this type of device: A "WiFi Bridge". The one you linked should be fine but there are hundreds of alternative options that use proper A/C power adapters, support newer WiFi standards, use better antennas, and can have multiple ethernet ports (to avoid needing a switch or more than one of these). Many routers can be set up to act as a WiFi bridge too.
Answer: As stated in other answers, a Wireless Bridge describes exactly what you are looking for.
To provide an alternative solution, I can also recommend a Powerline Adapter. This is a psuedo-wired connection. When you purchase the powerline adapter, it comes with two adapters and two ethernet cables. One adapter is connected to your router then plugged into a wall outlet. The ethernet signal is sent over your building's powerlines to the second adapter which is connected to the printer. You may even connect a networking switch to the adapter to connect multiple devices.
Answer: Don't get hung up on adapter.
Just use a basic network router that has wifi.
It can be a < $50 solution, and would likely be the most reliable.
Any number of rj-45 wired ports would suffice since you only need one.
And get one that supports your wifi network if it's n or ac or ax.
Otherwise basic 802.11 a/b/g wifi routers with < 8 ports are dirt cheap, you don't need any fancy it's only for a printer.  You would just need a 120vac wall outlet to plug the wifi router into for electrical power.
If you search on wifi having up to 52mbps, that will exclude all the expensive fancy wifi you don't need.
$19.55  BELKIN F5D7230-4 Wireless G Router 802.11g
Comment: A WiFi router does not serve the same function as a [Wireless Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_distribution_system#Technical). Some people refer to WiFi bridges as "adapters" because they adapt between a wireless and wired connection. A printer will not be usable by computers on the existing network if you connect it the ethernet port on a router that creates its own network. However, some routers can be configured to run in "Bridge Mode", which is a feature that you would have to specifically look for before buying just any router to solve this problem.


Re-entry to USA from Canada (previously on F-1 Visa)

Question: I am a Canadian citizen, currently back home in Canada. I completed my BFA in NYC from 2014-2018, and also finished my OPT from July 2018-July 2019. My grace period is 60 days, meaning it should've ended on September 6th, 2019. I am seeking advice on returning to the US, as a visitor, for a week or so, however this would be during my grace period. I have heard that I may have some trouble, and that it may depend on the officer at the border. I have absolutely no plans to work, or overstay, truly just a visit to see friends. Any advice on this? Has anyone experienced something similar? To add, I have no criminal history, and would have a plane/bus return ticket already booked by the time I attempt to enter.
Thanks in advance!
Answer: You cannot return in F status after you leave the US.  The grace period ends when you leave.
Your proposed visit appears to be permissible in B-2 status, which is the normal tourist status that Canadians receive when they enter the US for personal reasons.  There's a chance that your recent F status will bring greater scrutiny, but if you can prove that you're visiting friends and have a home to return to in Canada, you should be admitted.
Comment: Really appreciate the advice. So, do I need to apply for a B-2 visa just for a visit to the US? Even if there is proof of return and the visit is 1-2 weeks for leisure? Or will my Canadian citizenship and previous F status just bring additional questioning? Thanks again for any help!
Comment: @elij1s you don't need a visa.  Canadians who visit for personal reasons are admitted in B-2 status without a visa.
Comment: Ah, right. I seem to have confused a visa with status. I will definitely proceed with caution if I plan a trip and will be prepared to answer additional questions from an officer. Thanks again for the insight.


Find a list of actions that result in desired state

Question: I have a problem that I need to solve, and I'm looking for which area of computer science (algorithms. etc) would be appropriate to solve this problem.
In the system we have a list of actions that a user has previously taken. The possible actions are:

User creates item of type A.
User creates item of type B.
User creates item of type C.

The date and time the action was taken is also recorded.
We have a function passesRules which takes the list of all actions the user has previously taken as input, and applies a set of rules and returns a boolean. The boolean is true if any of the rules are true, and false if none of the rules are true.
There are many possible rules, but in general they take the form of:

Has user created 5 items of type A in the last 10 days?
Has user created 2 items of type B in the last 3 days?
Has user created more than 6 items of type C in last 5 days, AND
created 3 items of type A in the last 10 days?

What I want to do is to create a function predictActions which predicts the actions the user must take so that passesRules returns true.
Obviously with the rules described above there are multiple different sets of actions that could make passesRules return true. I would like predictActions to return an array where each element in the array is a list of actions the user could take to make passesRules return true.
predictActions should take the following parameters:

The list of actions the user has previously taken.
The list of rules.
The current date.

I'm not asking for a solution, but I don't know what area of computer science to investigate further to model and solve this problem. Something from graph theory, or some type of constraint solver?
Thanks!
Answer: It depends on what the rules are.  For your particular rules, this can be handled very simply by counting the number of events of each type seen in the given time window; then predictActions can easily compute the additional number of each type of action needed.


Give end-user with non adminstrative permssions the ability to update programs

Question: I'm managing a small network of computers running Windows 7, of which I have set end-users with limited permissions (non-admins). For security reasons I want the end-users to be able to update applications like Adobe Flash/Reader, Java, and Safari/Quicktime without the need of having admin access on the computer.
My initial idea was to create a scheduled task on the system that would run with full administrator permissions. The scheduled task's action would be to call the update executable programs. Like:
Apple Safari/Quicktime

"C:\Program Files\Apple Software Update\SoftwareUpdate.exe -task"

Adobe CS/Reader9

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6\Adobe_Updater.exe"

Adobe Flash

C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\FlashUtil11c_Plugin.exe -update plugin

Java

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe"

The problem when scheduling the task is that when it gets triggered, the limited end-user is not able to see the update dialog boxes. The scheduled task works perfectly when the administrator account is logged in, but not whenever the limited end-user is logged in, this completely defeats the purpose of having to schedule a task with full administrative permissions, since the limited end-user is not able to see if the scheduled task has happened.
Does anyone have any recommendations to the admin level scheduled task limited when a limited user is logged in? Or better yet, a different approach on having the non-admin users be able to update the applications.
Answer: Ahhh, Third Party Patch Management.  Makes you appreciate MSI files.
Technically you can't.  To update a program, you need write access to the program files. To modify these files, you'll need Admin access.  So really, you can't give them write access and not call it Admin privileges.
I suggest turning off the Update services and just downloading Adobe's unattended installers. Same for the Java installers.


What could have caused a partial-panel service interruption when my dryer was started?

Question: We had a unique thing happen the other day. The home has 200 Square D/Schneider service panel. When the dryer was started, everything that was feeding from the right side of the circuit went dead. However, none of the breakers were tripped. Before we could put a meter on it, they all came back on. The power company checked the meter can and the transformer but found no issues on their end. As they were checking the can, we started the dryer without issue. My diagnosis is a weak main that is in the process of giving up the ghost. Thoughts?
Comment: We can assume one leg or the other. Was the outage *exactly* correlated with the dryer startup?
Comment: When you say "right side of the circuit"... What do you mean?  Panels typically interleave so every other row of spaces is on a different leg/pole.
Comment: What model is your panel?
Answer: I think what you are trying to say is that you momentarily lost a phase. By the way there are 2 phases in you panel usually labeled A & B. Each one will read 120V to the neutral (ground) and 240V when measured phase to phase.
The momentary loss just might be a power company failure, but you might also be losing a phase in the panel. It might be just a loose conductor feeding from the meter to your panel or you might have a lose connection where the main id attached to your bus or your dryer breaker may not be making good contact with either its conductors or bus. Or like you said you may have a main going bad but that would be the most unlikely situation.
Open your panel and look for any discoloration or burned insulation around the breakers. When the dryer is running feel its breaker and the main and see if they feel warmer than the other breakers. If you have one check them out with an infrared thermometer. If you have a voltage meter you can test across the breakers and see what kind of voltage drop you are reading. It should be around .05 to .03 volts. If its reading somewhere around .1 to .3 volts you are reading a higher resistance in the breaker than usual and may be damaged. Also check the conductor landings on all breakers including the main beaker and make sure they are tight. There will be a lug torque chart on the panel door if it hasn't fallen off. If it's missing you can go on Sq D's website and they will have a lug torque chart.
I am surprised that if your utility company came out they didn't mention whether they had a phase loss or not since they should get an alarm and record if that happened. If you think this is testing is a little over the top;

This is the end result of what might happen.
So good luck and stay safe.


Any concerns using LED flashlight apps?

Question: I've always wondered with flashlight apps, especially ones that use the LED light(s): Is there any risk of shortening the life of the LEDs?  I noticed one app ("ASettings") gives a warning that doing so can "harm your phone"... which to me sounds even more ominous than burning out the bulb.  I thought LEDs had a crazy long lifespan to begin with, so do I need to worry?
Answer: There's a really good thread of discussion about this on AndroidForums here.
In short, LEDs have a long life span (20k+ hours?).  So the concern isn't really the LEDs burning out (although after a long period of time, they will eventually start losing the amount of output and their brightness will dim).
The real concern is to not apply too much voltage to the LED and overheat it.  Another concern would be overheating your battery (due to heat dissipation from draining the battery from powering the LED).
In short, if you're only using the LED for time periods less than half an hour, you should be okay.  If you need to use it longer, go get a real flash light. :)
Comment: @BryanDenny Thanks so much.  Does using it as a strobe (flashing on and off repeatedly at 30Hz-50Hz) change anything, or is that actually better for the LED because it's off half the time?
Comment: Voltage is pretty much fixed for a given LED, the amount of light and the heat are determined by the current through the LED.
Comment: @BryanDenny     Time for a necroQA.  You mentioned "after a long period of time...", any idea how long?
Comment: @rockpaperlizard it's a very gradual process and you won't really notice it. We are talking about tens of thousands of hours. When a bulb reaches its lifespan (20k, 50k, etc hours), the output will most likely be something like 70% or less of the original (new bulb) output.
Comment: @RockPaperLizard I'm not sure. Might be a better question for the electronics stack exchange site. I would assume that using a light on strobe would be better since the LED is on for less time.
Answer: LEDs do have a long lifespan (35K-50K hrs depending on the type of LED) but the issue is heat.  The LEDs are intended to be used as a flash (ultra short duration) and probably don't have very robust heat managment systems if they have any at all. Each phone is going to be different.  I would say that using it as a flashlight for a couple minutes tops is fine, but beyond that you run the risk of overheating which, depending on the type of LED and where it's positioned in the phone in relation to other hardware could damage the LED and possibly other components.
Answer: I use my LED for camera shots and also for lights and I have been doing so for almost every day or so and I've had my phone (myTouch Slide) for about 3 months now. Nothing has happened to it. I think if you're an avid user, you should just take care of it externally.
Answer: I have burnt my phone's leds with two of my previous phones. Pressumably because of those apps. I have never used flashlight continously not more than five minutes.

Any concerns using LED flashlight apps?


Would lackluster grades in Applied math hurt an application for Pure Math PhD programs?

Question: The question is pretty much the title. To start off, I'm not really worried about my record in pure mathematics classes/research. However, solely for the purpose of having a career backup I've also picked up a second major in applied math and several CS courses. I generally have little passion for these classes and ended up with a fair share of B's. My overall GPA is still fairly high but I was wondering if these grades would hurt my application to pure math programs and if I should address this in my personal statement.
Comment: you don't say why you don't like applied maths/CS classes. Pure maths research can be very fiddly and grotty. So if it's that you like studying nice theories, you won't like pure maths research either.
Comment: @MarkJoshi I did not think that information would be relevant to answering the question but it's simply preference. I think I have seen enough nasty PDE estimates to understand that pure math also gets fiddly and grotty and I do not find this to be a turn off.
Answer: The GPA is certainly one of the competitive aspects of an application for a graduate program in mathematics (and presumably, in most other academic fields), so anything which brings down your GPA hurts your application some positive amount.  Lackluster grades in applied math and CS are probably going to hurt more than lackluster grades in history and cinema studies.
As is often the case with admissions advice, it's hard to be more precise because the individual admissions committee gets to make up its own mind on how strongly to weight everything.  (And this may not be a bad thing: this is what allows one school of a certain caliber to accept your application while another school of the exact same caliber rejects it.)
For this issue, the structure of the department and university may play a role.  Namely, for undergraduate programs at US colleges and universities (your profile lists you as living in the United States) it is relatively rare for pure math and applied math to be truly separate majors.  In my department for instance applied math is an "area of emphasis" within the math major.  Yet more commonly, there's just one major and students show where they fall on the spectrum by their choice of classes.  If the graduate program to which you're applying is really just a pure math department (again, relatively rare at American universities, though my own graduate program was like this), then they may (perhaps) be used to ignoring or discounting applied math courses. If there's just one math department then admissions faculty who look at your transcript are probably going to view the applied math classes as math classes, and the amount that you will get dinged for your performance will probably be non-negligible.
Now comes the time to say that I find your overall approach curious.  You should not major in a subject for which you have "little passion".  If you know you are not interested in something then the obvious -- a bit narrow-minded, but strategically sound -- plan is to take the minimal number of courses required in that subject but make sure that you do well in them.  (Most often required undergraduate level courses at US universities are not too challenging for the type of students who are going on to graduate study.)  You don't like applied math or CS but you might, as a consolation prize, want a career in them?  This doesn't really scan.  I think it is much better to pursue serious career goals one at a time: if you don't get into graduate school for pure math you can still get a real world job with a major in pure math, and if at that time you discover that necessity has given birth to interest in these other fields: so be it, you can learn more about them then.
You ask whether you should address this in your personal statement.  Perhaps, but since I find your explanation a bit strange I'm not sure what you should write.  Consider providing less pointed information: e.g. you were considering a technical / industrial career until you discovered the depth of your interest in pure mathematics....Yeah, I find it tough to put a good spin on your situation that is faithful to the information given.  So a brief "sorry, these grades are anomalous; what I really like is this and notice how stellar my performance is there" may be the way to go.
Good luck.
Comment: _My parents asked me_ — Oh god no.  Do _not_ blame your parents for your grades.  You took the classes; you earned the grades.  Own them.
Comment: @jeffe I in no way, shape or form blame my parents for my performance. I will likely not even mention any of these grades in my SOP. However, Pete said he found my approach curious and I wanted to shed light on why somebody may take classes uninteresting to them. I  think my reasons are legitimate.
Comment: _sorry, these grades are anomalous; what I really like is this and notice how stellar my performance is there_ I really like this explanation, honest and direct.
Comment: Thank you for the honest response. To be honest, most of these courses were taken under parental pressure and misunderstanding of the job market. Additionally I was able to pick up a second major in lieu of some general education requirements necessary to graduate. I decided to do so because I find it much easier to focus on 3-4 pure math classes and get a B or higher in applied math than focus on math classes and get a decent grade in a paper heavy class like literature.
Comment: From my experience, this is good advice. One must be direct in these situations firstly, and access their career goals and aspiration secondly. If one is really not passionate about their field, then it may just not be worth it to continue.
Answer: B's in the major you are not planning to pursue in grad school are not a disaster.
Sure, in grad school you don't want to have multiple B's in your transcript.  But we're talking about your undergrad transcript here.  B's are allowed.
Your strength in pure math will be apparent in your pure math grades, your math GRE, your undergrad research experience if you have any (this item is optional, so if you don't have it, don't fret), and your essay.  I recommend that you speak in your essay about what really gets you fired up, in positive terms.  (Leave out anything about how if you never have to write or debug another large piece of code again it will be too soon.)
There are plenty of schools where pure math and applied math are in separate departments.  To be on the safe side, make sure at least one of your applications is to such a school.
And tell your parents (who of course want the best for you, but perhaps are not trained mathematicians), real men and women do pure math!  (I'm saying that out of support for what you like.  I personally like applied math best -- but everybody's different!)


What's the best technique to sight read fast big band scores?

Question: I've recently joined a big band. I play second alto saxophone. I do well enough when playing the slower pieces. But I struggle to read the quicker swing pieces. What's the best technique to play faster swing rhythms?
Comment: Practice, practice, practice.   The only way to get good at sight reading fast music is to do more sight reading and try to push the tempo. Most bands don't torture their players with pure sight reading.  Can you take the charts home to work on?
Answer: ggcg's comment is correct. practice. Specifically practice sight reading.
Sight reading is just learning to recognize patterns you've seen before. The only way to do this is see them a lot.
Maybe ask the musical director for some parts to take home each week (pieces you aren't already playing) and read them at home. Don't read them two days in a row. Don't practice them. Meaning, don't stop to correct mistakes. Only play them at most twice a day. Play them as slowly as you can without mistakes. You will get faster in time.
There is also a skill of being able to quickly glance at a part and identifying key parts. Key changes, repeat signs, ds al codas , runs or other possibly technically difficult parts, etc that may cause trouble. Being able to spot this and do a quick mental assessment before the leader counts you in gives you an edge up. Practice doing this as well. At first maybe take longer doing this so you get better at it and then slowly reduce the amount of time you spend on this pre-playing "cheating" as you get better at it.
But yeah...practice practice practice.
Comment: An addition to this: spend time *reading the score* before you try sight reading it - not just "a quick glance" but as long as it takes to figure out "how it goes," what the repeat structure is, what fingerings to use for tricky passages (I'm not a wind player but that's certainly important for keyboards) etc. It's worth point out that in classical music exams that include a sight reading test, candidates are given time to do this, and even to try playing a few short passages *before* attempting to read the complete piece.
Comment: … and an anecdote about how good some people can get at this: Liszt was doing a concert tour of the UK and wanted to include some English music in his programme. He discovered that one of his concerts was on the birthday of a well known English composer of the time, bought some sheet music from a shop in London, studied the scores on the train from London to Brighton (only a 25 mile trip), and "sight-read" the pieces at his concert there --- ***from memory***.
Answer: First thing I do, given a moment, is to highlight the repeats, DCs,DSs, codas. And key changes. Then at least I can easily follow the geography of the piece.
Looking ahead, as ever, and count like hell ! Keep a foot tapping, head nodding, whatever works best. For me, having an idea of the chord structure helps, as it allows clues as to how the tune may go melodically. Main notes are often chord tones.
Answer: These other answers are good.
I just want to touch on the "swing" part. A problem you might be having is that you're trying to focus too much on swinging.
Firstly, you should not be swinging with your fingers. If you're swinging by moving your fingers as jagged speeds to get to the different notes, then you're going to seriously inhibit your ability to play fast. Nearly all swinging should just be done with your articulation.
Secondly, you should start integrating swing into your regular practice sessions. Run your scales and modes full range with a metronome at half speed. Treat this metronome as the hi-hat hitting on beats 2 and 4. Slur every other note (think "ta too-a too-a too-a...") but keep your fingers consistent. Eventually, this will become second-nature and you won't have to think about swinging.


Written document from meeting in spite of a contract

Question: I resigned from a company and it was documented in a meeting with my district manager that I would receive compensation for the way I left. It changed the way I left the organization as I had 3 different ways to leave, but as I am leaving, I am being told the meeting document is incorrect in regards to the original written contract. Does this meeting document supersede my original written contract? Do I have rights in regards to this meeting document given to me?
Answer: Generally, the written terms of a contract prevail. However, the terms of a contract can be subsequently modified, and a modification can be oral or in writing. You are entitled to rely on such a promise and act accordingly. If they had promised one benefit and 1 second later said "No, wait, we can't do that according to your contract", you would not have relied on their promise in making your decision. But you did, to your detriment. You can use the doctrine of promissory estoppel to keep them from pointing to the original document, saying "We didn't mean it". There could be a question whether the person who said this was an authorized agent of the company (i.e. the janitor can't give you his promise that you have a more lucrative option).
Comment: The question is rather weather the person had ostensible authority- actual authority is irrelevant.


How to recover emails backed up in iCloud

Question: I use Mail on my iPad mini iOS 9.2 with 3 different email addresses coming in, one of which is Gmail set up as IMAP to download onto my iPad and my iPhone 6. I have iCloud set to backup everything including Mail. Today, for whatever reason, all my emails from my Gmail account just disappeared as I opened Mail, and they are gone from my Gmail webmail online too. Gmail says they can't help. I am hoping that I might be able to recover them using my iCloud backup, but don't know how to do it. Please can anyone help? Thank you.
Answer: This issue is most likely something to do with Gmail and it's syncing. Check Gmail.com to see if your mail is still there.
If it is, try deleting your Gmail account from your iPad (Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > (your Gmail account) and press "Delete Account". Then add the account back by tapping Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > New Account. Select Gmail and input your credentials. This should bring back your mail.
If you need to restore from an iCloud backup because the mail on your phone was archived locally and not synced to Gmail, restore from an iCloud backup as detailed in Apple's Support article:

Erase your iPad by tapping Settings > General > Reset All Content and Settings
After your iPad has been erased and your device has presented the greeting screen, follow the steps. Join a Wifi network, and follow the next steps.
Tap "Restore from iCloud Backup". Sign into iCloud and choose the backup you want to restore to your device.
Continue to follow the steps until you have restored your iPad and your locally archived mail should be where it was put.
Comment: Thank you taking the trouble to reply. I think you are right, it Is a Gmail problem, the emails have all gone into trash in my online Gmail account so have changed my password there. My mail was synched, not archived locally, which is why they have gone on the iPad. So long as I can get them back from iCloud as per your link though I shall be very relieved!


How Would I Go About Sharing a Word Document to a Literary Agent?

Question: I was wondering, how would I go about sharing a Word document to a literary agent? I currently have all my professionally proofread novels formatted. They are formatted as the following: 1 inch margins all around, font is Times New Roman with a font size of 12, there's a title page, and there are running headers with the title and the author name. However, my book is single-spaced. Also, my paragraphs are indented at 0.5, first-line and there are chapter headings. When an agent requests to read my book, do I turn on Tracked Changes to track all suggestions they make? If so, do I utilize the password protect option found in Word? Would putting a password for this be considered rude?
Answer: Agents don't do any editing or suggesting until you've already signed a contract with them, unless they're asking for a revise and resubmit, in which case they're more likely to send you an email of suggested changes. When you've signed, they'll tell you how to best share your work for them. Mine, for instance, likes to give edits over the phone.
In the querying process, go by what their websites say. First queries almost never should have attachments; in fact, they'll go straight to spam. Most ask for a certain number of changes (varies based on agent) pasted directly into the email below the query. I have never heard of anyone at all putting a password on something they've sent an agent, and I imagine it would be considered rude. If you wouldn't trust someone not to steal your work, you shouldn't send it to them... It's not like a password would make them unable to.
Comment: Well thank you.
Comment: Trust Lee.

In any kind of collaboration either do what comes naturally, or agree the rules you'll work with.

Please remember, what you Posted wasn't at all the full style specification and even had it been complete, half the point of a modern word processor is that you can change styles at the press of a few buttons… including, if necessary, import all your work into a template your agent, editor, publisher or any other collaborator specifies.