Can you permanently True Polymorph into yourself?

Question: Can a character true polymorph into itself (possibly after transforming into some other form first)? Possibly to prevent aging, cure wounds, or alter their original body in some way? Or as a means of reversing a True Polymorph someone permanently cast against them earlier? (ex a warrior is permanently transformed into a toad, and the party wizard shows up to permanently transform the warrior back into his regular self.)
Comment: Note that there's a far easier way to reverse a True Polymorph than by casting True Polymorph again:

"The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 Hit Points or dies. If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent."

Concentrating for the full hour causes the transformation's duration to become permanent, but it doesn't negate the 0 hit points clause. Just smack the toad, and the warrior will pop out slightly bruised.
Comment: @EttinaKitten are you sure about that? "If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation lasts until it is dispelled." is the wording from the PHD/DNDBeyond. I don't think hitting them would do anything, but a Wizard powerful enough to True Polymorph you *should* also be powerful enough to Dispel the effect as required.
Answer: Short answer: Yes you can, but it could get complicated
Addressing the elements in reverse order:
The Soul of a Warrior Trapped in a Toad's Body

Can a character True Polymorph into itself as a means of reversing a True Polymorph someone permanently cast against them earlier?  (ex: A warrior is permanently transformed into a toad.  The party wizard shows up to permanently transform the warrior back into his regular self.)

First of all, his equipment's gone if you turn the toad back into a warrior.
p. 283 PHB, from the spell description.

The target's gear melds into the new form. The creature can't activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of its equipment.

Secondly: what is the CR or character level of the toad?  When he got turned into a toad with the one hour concentration that made it permanent, that new form has new statistics, and has either a level or a CR bounded by how the spell operates.

the target's game statistics are replaced by the new form statistics including also its mental ability scores  ...
If you turn a creature into another kind of creature, the new form can be any kind you choose whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's (or its level, if the target doesn't have a challenge rating).

If your warrior was ninth level, did he become a ninth level toad, a CR X toad, or what?  As a point of reference: a Giant toad is CR 1, a Giant Frog is CR 1/4, and a regular frog (close enough to a toad) is CR 0.
Once the level or CR of this toad is established (work with your DM) you can transform that "once a warrior, now a toad" into a warrior (himself?) with a CR equal to or less than the CR of its current form per the spell description.
There is a potential for bad news: what is the equivalent level of a CR=0 warrior?  A congressman?

The target's game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the new form. It retains its alignment and personality.

That last sentence opens the door to "kiss the frog and restore the prince inside."  If who you are is made up of your alignment and personality and your soul (you aren't dead, you are alive, it is YOU in there, and souls* are part of D&D 5e), then "You the toad" could be a level-X warrior trapped in a toad's body.
Your DM could rule yes or no on that.

If DM rules no, it might take a wish spell to restore the warrior to
his true self.
But DM could rule yes based on the soul of the warrior remaining intact due to still being alive, albeit in a new form.

*Note on the soul, from 9th level Astral Projection spell:

If the cord is cut—something that can happen only when an effect specifically states that it does — your soul and body are separated, killing you instantly.

From this we deduce that while still alive, your soul -- who you are -- remains with you regardless of what form you are in.  There's hope.  "Who's inside that new body?" is also addressed here in the section with the title "The Vibe."
Now for the Generic question:
Who's Really In There, Inside that Body?

Can a character True Polymorph into itself (possibly after transforming into some other form first)?  Possibly to prevent aging, cure wounds, or alter their original body in some way?

Once the CR/Level issue noted above is resolved with the DM, yes, as long as whomever casts the spell can concentrate long enough to do it.  Once again:

If you turn a creature into another kind of creature, the new form can be any kind you choose whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's (or its level, if the target doesn't have a challenge rating).

Work that out with your DM and proceed.
For what it's worth, Jeremy Crawford(lead rules dev for 5e) had this to say about who is in there:

A spell doesn't erase/suppress your memories unless the spell's text
says it does.
When the text of a spell, like polymorph, says you retain your personality after a transformation, that's a terse way of saying, "You're still you, despite the radical changes you undergo." #DnD

Supporting point on it being "you" in there no matter what form you take.
There is a hint that "it's you in there!" in the "Creature to Object" element of the spell (p. 284 PHB) where a creature becomes an inanimate object for a while (not a permanent transformation).  "You" are in there but "...the creature has no memory of the time spent in this form ..."
This can be read as being due to inanimate objects having no mental abilities. (Remember, the new form's stats are now your stats). You were in there, body and soul, but the lack of mental traits rendered memory irrelevant ... more "in a coma" than "brain death." You come out of this "coma" alive and intact, with your stats, when the spell expires.
This interpretation, you not being dead when temporarily an object, is consistent with soul and body being bound together in a live character, however impaired in terms of stats.
If the change into an object is permanent ... that's another story, or another trope.
Work with your DM.
Comment: In the permanent form of the spell, I don't see a reason to change the gear back because gear (inanimate objects) isn't a creature.  Since some artifacts have spirits/souls, those would be a good exception.  For the temp form, I agree that the gear would change back since the magic is a temporary change in status.  In older versions of D&D, there were saving throws for gear/magical gear, so you could have each piece of magical gear save versus spells if, as DM, you want to allow that.
Comment: I had not considered the equipment issue. The gear melds into the new form; however, in a non-permanent True Polymorph, it is my expectation that the gear transforms back when the creature does. If correct, that would indicate some "record" of the gear still exists, though whether that is useful for a subsequent transformation, I don't know. The wizard *can* provide new equipment, but probably only the standard for the new form's class (toad becomes warrior with chain armor, sort of thing. No magic items).
Comment: Luckily, the whole question is completely negated by the adjusted wording of the spell, which specifies that it can be dispelled. So 9th level dispel, and you are good to go. All items and equipment are back too.
Comment: +1 for the post and discussion of a soul. However, I believe the spell states that anything so transformed keeps all its class levels and abilities. While a toad may not be capable of doing these things, the *class levels* remain. The changed physical attributes, however, could still affect the CR rating; do you have thoughts on that?
Comment: "anything so transformed keeps all its class levels and abilities" is actually "any creature" not "any thing" since that part is in the creature to creature section of the spell description.
Comment: Note that you need to make the warrior 10th level at least for this to be a problem.  Otherwise, you turn your toad warrior into a rock, and the rock into the level 9 warrior.  Of course, the real solution is to squish the toad, ending the spell, but w/e
Comment: I think that toad is still ninth level since the first polymorph will revert on reduction to 0 hp.
Comment: Does the fact that multiple copies of the same spell don't stack (Player's Handbook p. 205) change using True Polymorph on a previously permanently True Polymorphed being? If the latter casting is deemed to be "most potent", should it undo the first casting, so that when this non-permanent casting ends, the warrior returns (as if the first effect had been dispelled?)
Comment: @SnoringFrog Good question, and maybe "overwrite" fits better than "undo" in this case.  (I think you have the makings of a good question right there.  )
Answer: No, you can't true polymorph into yourself.
True Polymorph (PHB, p. 283):

If you turn a creature into another kind of creature, the new form can be any kind you choose.

The word "kind" seems to be pretty important here, so let's see if any other spells or other rules use it in this way:
Antipathy/Sympathy (PHB p. 214):

Then specify a kind of intelligent creature, such as red dragons, goblins, or vampires.

Locate Creature (PHB p. 256):

The spell can ... the nearest creature of a specific kind (such as a human or a unicorn) ..

Special Purpose (sentient magic items) (DMG p. 216):

Protector: The item seeks to defend a particular race or kind of creature, such as elves or druids.

Wand of Orcus (DMG p. 227):

While attuned to the wand, Orcus can summon any kind of undead, not just skeletons and zombies.

Examples we have of "kinds of creatures" are: red dragons, goblins, vampires, humans, unicorns, elves, druids, skeletons, zombies. So, that implies that that's the level of choice a spellcaster has when casting True Polymorph. True polymorph doesn't let you change a creature into a specific other creature, just a creature of some (specific) kind. Shapechange is limited to "average examples" of a creature, and nothing indicates that the polymorph spells permit any other kind of specificity.
In the case of a warrior true polymorphed into a toad, the options are:

Dispelling the true polymorph spell, which will restore the warrior to its original form.
True polymorphing the warrior into some other form, of which they will be an average example. If they are made into their original race, they will be an average member of that race with no class or levels, average attribute scores, and their original alignment and memories.
Kill the toad and then cast true resurrection, which will "create a new body if the original no longer exists."
Comment: I like 'kill the toad and cast true resurrection" (if you have the 25,000 GP diamond) as an approach.
Answer: Yes, you can true polymorph yourself into yourself, as you are a kind of creature.  As for people who use other completely different descriptions from completely different spells to reason that a similar word usage they all share makes the word use of the other completely different spell in question the same as said completely different spells, you are completely different from being far sighted. Emphasis on the completely different here.
But ultimately it comes down to what the DM will allow.
Comment: I think you need to support your claim that any one person is a *kind* of person. The other answer (which I think is the one you are refering to) uses other spells as precedent to understand the term in the system. Arguing that words shouldn't be expected to have consistent meaning seems rather counterproductive to me. Also, we generally expect answers to fully answer the question independently of eachother, so I'll suggest you [edit] yours to do that.
Comment: On the other hand, Welcome to RPG.SE! Take the [tour] if you haven't already and see the [help] or ask us here in the comments (use @ to ping someone) if you need more guidance. Good Luck and Happy Gaming!
Comment: I think you may be on to something here - the game uses the term "Creature type" in the MM (humanoid, beast, dragon, undead) so you might want to address the points on 'kind' with a reference to *creature type* - or not.  Up to you.  It's a pity that the game text in the PHB used kind rather than type, but they went with the "normal English" thing and I guess didn't see this kind of question coming up.


Is it safe to install Linux Mint Alongside Windows 10?

Question: I have a laptop with a 240 GB SSD and a Windows 10 OS installed on all the drive space. I want to have a Linux Mint on my pendrive but it's really slow and i can't store any data on that system so i want to install it alongside my Windows 10 with as little as space i can give Linux Mint. But i don't think the option "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows 10" it's safe for my windows and i don't have any big enough USB drive to backup it. So my question is "It is safe to do this?" and i want to know how little space i can give Linux Mint.
Answer: Yes you can do this. In my experience the golden rule here is to use each operating system's own tools to manage its partitions, even if the other OS says it can manage them. So, use the Windows Disk Management tool to shrink your Windows partition. Yes, Ubuntu could do it too, but no one k ow windows like Microsoft. (The rule applies going the other way too...use Linux tools to manipulate Linux file systems. )
Then, once you have the space, you can boot the Ubuntu install and have it create a partition on the empty space and install.
Answer: Theoretically it's not safe. The installer will organise place for the new OS and this will mean moving files on Windows partitions in order to resize them. You will be warned about this and about it not being safe and that you should back up your files.
Practically, I've done this many times and have never lost any data.
As for the space, depending on what OS configuration you fancy, as little as 5GB for a simple server up to 20GB more for a GUI desktop will be enough. If you're really pressed for space and want a GUI desktop, 15G should be ok too, though you may feel from time to time that the space is scarce.
Answer: Always there is a risk, however most of the Linux distributions (including Linux Mint) minimize that risk by a more user-friendly installation process.
I haven't tried myself, but there is a good tutorial here to install Linux Mint 18 alongside Windows 8.x or Windows 10. It simply consists of these main steps.

Set apart an unallocated space by Windows' Disk Management tool.
Reboot the computer and boot from a DVD or USB drive.
Once Linux Mint runs in live-mode, start installation by clicking "Install Linux Mint".
Set your preferences and proceed. The most important part here is selecting the installation type and creating the partitions correctly.
If the instructions are followed properly, Windows and Linux Mint will work alongside.

The worst mistake would be erasing the disk, which Windows is running on. I have installed Linux alongside Windows lots of times for years, but I have never lost data.
Let's come on to the required disk space for Linux Mint. I have checked the system requirements for Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon and Xfce, both have the same requirements. You need 15GB space at minimum, however 20GB is recommended.
The Linux Mint Blog (blog.linuxmint.com) says:

System requirements:

1GB RAM (2GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
15GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows    with the mouse if they don't fit in the screen).


What is n+1 testing?

Question: I faced an interview and he said for n+1 testing. is this any term of testing? he also said for the Devops? Please Clarify these terms.
Answer: N+1 Testing (as quoted from here):

A variation of Regression Testing. Testing conducted with multiple
  cycles in which errors found in test cycle N are resolved and the
  solution is retested in test cycle N+1. The cycles are typically
  repeated until the solution reaches a steady state and there are no
  errors.

DevOps (as quoted from here):

In traditional functionally separated organizations there is rarely
  cross-departmental integration of these functions with IT operations.
  DevOps promotes a set of processes and methods for thinking about
  communication and collaboration between development, QA, and IT
  operations

DevOps is one if the roles that is a great buzz-word and everyone defines it differently. For me personally DevOps means "automate everything in your SDLC" to minizime human error and to optimize the release cycle and maintenance of your infrastructure.
Answer: In my world devops are the people responsible for solving operations problems.
The dev is there because there are multiple levels between the day to day technicians work and "first responders" that knows how to solve simple problems (reboot something is usually a good example).
Actually we don't have dedicated devops people, it's just a duty the engineers share.
Answer: In the terminology used in any software testing services: n+1 testing is basically used to ensure a good quality cycle after reported errors are fixed.
The quality cycles are then repeated until the solution reaches a steady state and are free from any error. Due to this, it is also often known as a
variation of the Regression Testing(thorough testing each module of the application) as well.
The second terminology used in software testing company: DevOps is a movement to bring Development and Operations together– a way to communicate and collaborate across Dev and Ops. Development here is inclusive of development and test. It can be further classified as meeting the market demands for delivery of innovative new application services, doing this faster and at a lower cost without compromising on quality. So, in a nutshell, DevOps is a software development methodology which looks to integrate all the software development functions from development to operations within the same cycle.
Please refer to below link for more details on this terminology:
https://sdarchitect.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/understanding-devops-part-1-defining-devops/

What is n+1 testing?


How do I perform a V up on a pull up bar?

Question: I am a new pole vaulter, and one of the exercises we've been doing is the V-up, touching your toes to your hands and further while hanging from a pull-up bar. My coach says most everyone should be able to do this, but for some reason, I struggle with getting my legs past parallel with the ground. I have scapular winging and I do not if that may have anything to do with it. I have been trying to perform this exercise for a couple of days, but I don't know how to build up the strength to perform it properly, and often just make a few attempts, failing, before stopping. How can I properly build up the strength to perform this exercise?
Comment: I believe this is more commonly known as a toe to bar exercise? If so, might be worth putting that name in the question title as well.
Comment: Yes this is called "toe to bar" when doing this on a pull-up bar.
Answer: Disclaimer: I don't know what scapular winging is, and if you think you have an actual physical issue that prevents this movement, check with a medical expert.
This movement involves two main contractions. Of course neither is isolated, but at different parts of the move, different muscles are the primary mover.
The first primary contraction is from your hip flexors, and this is how you get your legs to about parallel.
From there your abdominals must contract to pull your hips up to achieve the remaining range of motion. For many (myself included) this is the most challenging part of the movement. So it could be your sticking point, or maybe you were just missing this cue. A possible progression could be leg raises on the floor, but lifting your hips off the floor to simulate the fuller range of motion.


Dama ben Nesina and the red heifer

Question: Kidushin 31a brings the story of Dama ben Nesina and his amazing Kibud Av V'Aim which cost him a huge fortune. He was rewarded for his amazing Kibud Av V'Aim by one of his cows giving birth to a red heifer (Para Aduma) which was then sold for the same amount he previously lost by doing Kibud Av V'Aim. Why was there a need specifically for him to be rewarded in such a manner? Why could he not find a diamond that had such a value? Why reward him with a Para Aduma?
Comment: Had he gotten a diamond people would ask why not a red heifer. Rambam writes in MN that such as question is therefore illegitimate. (I don't remember which chapter).
Answer: Ma'ayaneh Shel Torah quotes the The Chiddushei HaRIM that when Dama ben Nesina lost a huge sum of money because he was honoring his father, it created a Heavenly Accusation against the Jewish people.
By giving him a red heifer, G-d showed that while a non-Jew was willing to lose a large amount of money for a Mitzvah that makes sense, the Jews were willing to spend the same amount of money for a Mitzvah that is a Divine Decree and is completely irrational.
Answer: According to rashi in Bamidbar 19:22, in his second explanation of para aduma from rabi Moshe hadarshan, the para aduma comes to fix the mess from the eigel, just like the maidservant who cleans the mess in the palace that her child made.
Accordingly, the para aduma is representative of a good relationship between parent and child. Mr. Nesina was treated favorably by his son and the reward to the son was sign that his father was actually deserving of such behavior. As opposed to lets say his mother from story later in the gemara.
Answer: To demonstrate that although we see good rational reasons for kibbud av, we still must treat it as a chok and show unconditional observance even when it may not seem logical. This may be why it is listed in 10 commandments with the mitzvos between man and hashem and not with mitzvos between mam and man.
Answer: Similar to the last answer but a little more. The parah adumah is called "Zos Chukas Hatorah" not "Chukas Haparah" to show that like all Mitzvohs in the Torah - they are not done out of rational sense but because Hashem commanded it. The story of Dama illustrates this. He kept the most sensible and rational Mitzvah of Kibud Av and was rewarded by the totally irrational and supernatural Mitzvah of Parah. To show, we don't understand anything at all with our puny abilities and it's all the same Torah commandment to follow. I had heard he kept the Mitzvah of Kibud Av because it was commanded and not out of rational sense. If the latter, he would have found a reason to wake his father for the loss of money.
Answer: BTW- I had also heard that the reason it is listed on the right side of the Luchos as noted above is because acknowledging that one came from somewhere, i.e. parents , is an acknowledgement of Hashem's creation of the Universe and that's why its listed on the group of Commandments between Man and Hashem. (Also because Hashem in the third partner in creation of every Man in addition to the two parents).  Likewise, Shabbos is on the right side of the Two Luchos , (actually there were two separate Luchos -not like the depiction of one Tablet with a right side and a left side), to acknowledge that Hashem created the World and , therefore, ceased Creation on Shabbos.

Dama ben Nesina and the red heifer


Shared wifi security/privacy

Question: I live in a building with free WiFi access for all of the 30plus tenants. I've lived here for just over a year, the WiFi password has never changed. I added a WiFi extender to address the deadzone where I'm at in the building which has worked great. I use the building WiFi to surf the net, online banking and online purchases, using my phone and tablet both android OS. Should I be concerned about security/privacy?
Comment: Even if there is a password the fact that it never got changed effectively makes the network kind of open/public. Therefore possible duplicate of [How much of a risk to students is an open WiFi network on campus?](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/73226/how-much-of-a-risk-to-students-is-an-open-wifi-network-on-campus-edit-please-r), [Are there risks associated with connecting to a public hotspot?](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/46533/are-there-risks-associated-with-connecting-to-a-public-hotspot).
Answer: You should be concerned only when using non secure connections ie.http
these connections can be sniffed.
what is important is to be aware of various attacks against encrypted connections, basically, ensure you do not accept new SSL certificates if prompted, unless 100% sure.
another important thing is to ensure your software firewall blocks inbound connections, if you're running a service that requires inbound port to be open, ensure software listening on this port is fully updated.
also, keep in mind if your PC/phone is infected already then all of the above doesn't make sense, in which case you should fix that first.
Answer: Yes you should be concerned.

Your traffic can be sniffed
Your system can be fingerprinted and exploited with zero-day vulnerabilities
If you are slow in patching and there is a known exploit. One got make use of that exploit and take over your system
One could shut you out from the internet.
Others could spoof your mac address/ip address
There are many possiblities.

So what you probably should do is ensure you are always having latest patches. Keep your antivirus up to date, have your firewall block inbound connecting, ensure any sensitive sites or transactional sites have SSL(even if you are using any messaging service).
Be vigilant and if you happen to see this when you are accessing a website, don't just click ignore.

So yes again, you should be concerned irregardless

Shared wifi security/privacy


Can a quantity have two units?

Question: We know that Force has unit of newton and torque has unit of newton meter. Then if you define the energy, which has same magnitude of work then,
$W=Fx$ has unit of Joule ( $J$ ) (or $Nm$ ) while $W=\tau\theta$ has a unit of joule-radian. (because $\tau$ has unit $Nm$ and $\theta$ has unit radian). But my question is how energy can have both units joule and joule-radian? (although it does not affect dimension). If the answer is that, in such case we avoid the term radian because it does not affect the dimension, then why we use rad/s as the unit of angular velocity instead of 'per second' (avoiding radian term)?
Comment: Radians are in fact [dimensionless](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/803955/why-radian-is-dimensionless).
Comment: As you say radians have no dimensions an so do not effect the units of quantities. In my experience people generally do simply use $s^{-1}$ as the unit of angular velocity and leave out the rad
Comment: @sanchises no, that's not a fact. See my comment to the answer below.
Comment: @docscience I quote your answer (which is in its entirety based on one paper, from a field notable for taking a laid back approach to units), "[angles] should not necessarily be considered a dimensionless quantity, but rather a dimensionless unit". Since I referred specifically to radians (the unit) being dimensionless, not angles (the quantity), I think you're being a little bit too eager to disagree.
Comment: Possible duplicates: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/33542/2451 , http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/36079/2451 and links therein.
Answer: Physicists also use g/kg in many fields (chemistery, atmosphere dynamics), and Hubble constant is in  (km/s)/Mpc. Light transport and scattering have many very close formula that might only differs by having or not a cosine inside, or be integrated or not with a unitary weight function.
Of course you would be right to say g/kg is dimensionless and Hubble constant is in Hz. Still, the unit tells something about the aspect you intended to measure, or how you got obtained the measure. It also incorporates some constants (i.e., scalings).
Answer: Lets consider a simple case where the torque on something is being applied perpendicular to the axis of rotation such that the torque is given by $\tau = rF$, where $r$ is the distance of the pivot point.  When the object is rotating, the distance over which the force is applied is given by $r\theta$, which is the arclength of a circle of radius $r$ rotated by an angle $\theta$.  So, what we effectively have is a work done being:
$W = F\Delta x = Fr\theta = \tau\theta$
So in this case, the 'dimensionless' unit of radians comes in to help you define the distance over which the work is actually being done.
The reason that you see things written with radians or degrees specified is because there are many ways in which you can define how a circle is split up into angular sections, and converting between those factors can be important even though they do not contribute dimensions to any quantity.  Radians is somewhat special however, in that it specifies the ratio of the arclength of circle, $s$, to the radius of the circle, $r$.  So, when you write $\theta = s/r$, both $s$ and $r$ have units of length that cancel, meaning $\theta$, while specified in radians in this case, is dimensionless.
Other cases where using radians is important show up in many places in both geometry and physics.  Aside from the conversion of angle to arclength that I've shown above, a good example of the importance of keeping track of when you using radians shows up when calculating the period of a simple harmonic oscillator.  Consider a simple pendulum of length $L$.  It can be shown that the equation for a pendulum's motion is given by:
$\frac{d^2\theta(t)}{dt^2} = -\frac{g}{L}\theta(t)$
where $\theta$ is the angle the pendulum makes from the vertical.  This is the simple harmonic oscillator equation, and from this, we can deduce an angular frequency of $\omega = \sqrt{g/L}$.  Note that $\sqrt{g/L}$ produces something that we would consider to have units of $\text{rad/s}$.  This is important to keep track of, because if we want to convert this to a measure of the period of motion, we will first need to convert this to the frequency of motion (number of oscillations per second), using $f=\omega/(2\pi)$ which has units of $\text{1/s}$.  The inverse of the frequency of motion is the period $T = 2\pi\sqrt{L/g}$.  Now, what is important here is that you can list the angular frequency, $\omega$, in units of $\text{1/s}$ if you want, but it is ill advised because listing $\text{rad}$ in the units will help you keep track of the factors of $2\pi$ when converting to other quantities of interest.
Physicists and mathematicians know that there is great possibility for error from dropped factors of $\pi$ associated with these types of conversions.
Comment: By stricter standards, radians are *not* dimensionless. Although the two legs of the triangle leading to a radian measure have the same *magnitude* of measure, they do not necessarily have the same *direction*. In practice it is best *not* to ignore radians in your units. See my answer to http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/193684/45613 and the reference within.
Comment: Right, this is kind of what I was going for in my edit.  If you want to use your angle to compute physical quantities, you'll need to know if you are using radians or not.  The arclength to radius ratio is a good example of that.
Comment: @tmwilson26 Perhaps you could extend your edit with an example where you actually need the conversion factor - i.e., any of the countless problems where you include a factor $2\pi$.
Comment: Thats a good suggestion, I will try to add that at some point today.
Answer: We use the radians because it is useful, for two reasons: because it is a useful multiple and because the "subject" of your physical quantity isn't obvious.
"Radian" means nothing more than "couple", "dozen" or "mole": it is just a multiple of something. You can use the units of $s^{-1}$, or "per seconds" in the same way you can use "per month" as in "I eat 24 eggs per month". This makes sense, but saying "I eat 2 dozens of eggs per month" is more convenient.

why we use rad/s as the unit of angular velocity instead of 'per second' (avoiding radian term)?

In our eggs analogy, you are asking "why do we use dozens per month instead of ___ per month?". This is because when the unit is dimensionless is not clear what you're talking about. May as well be chocolate bars, or cakes, or carrots per month (or, giving up the analogy, it could be degrees, radians or turns per second).
If you give a context where the subject is indeed obvious, you can surely drop the "fake unit".

Can a quantity have two units?


Can I gift money out of a UTMA account to my child's sibling?

Question: My Father gifted $50,000 to my daughter over a 5 year period. This money is in a UGMA account on my daughter's behalf. I now have three children. My father's intent was to provide for all of my children. However, he does not have money to gift to my other children. Is it possible to gift $10,000 out of my daughter's account to each of her siblings?
Answer: UGMA and UTMA accounts are in the name of a single child(Your daughter), the funds are not transferrable to another beneficiary. There are strict rules governing UTMA/UGMA accounts.
As a custodian, you do not own the assets in the accounts; the minor ultimately owns the asset, however, you can make certain withdrawals from the account to cover expenses for the benefit of the child, such as school fees, tutoring, computer equipment, etc.
I'm not sure gifting some of the money to her other siblings will actually benefit your daughter who happens to be the real beneficiary.
Comment: Welcome to Money.SE, a nice answer to this one. For future readers who are inclined to gift in this manner, a 529 account allows for this process, the ability to redistribute after the fact. For UTMA of course, you are 100% correct.
Answer: The UTMA is actually very liberal in how custodians can spend the money: "A custodian may deliver or pay to the minor or expend for the minor's benefit so much of the custodial property as the custodian considers advisable for the use and benefit of the minor . . . ."  A custodian might reasonably consider expending the UTMA money on groceries the benefit the child, for instance.
Comment: to make your answer better, try to include references, while putting them in quotations is a good start, it doesn't make it verifiable reference
Answer: The text of the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act states (Section 14, paragraph a):

A custodian may deliver or pay to the minor or expend for the minor's benefit
  so much of the custodial property as the custodian considers advisable for the use and benefit of
  the minor, without court order and without regard to (i) the duty or ability of the custodian
  personally or of any other person to support the minor, or (ii) any other income or property of the
  minor which may be applicable or available for that purpose.

Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to make the case that giving the money to her siblings is for the "use and benefit" of your daughter.
However, when your daughter reaches the age of maturity, any money left in the UTMA account becomes hers.  She, at that time, could give money to her siblings, if she chooses.  Perhaps you and your father could talk to her about your father's wishes for this money, and that would show her that she should do so at that time.
If you don't follow these rules, then your daughter or your father could sue you at any point in the future.
Comment: Could a parent use money from the account to pay living expenses for the daughter that they would otherwise have paid themselves, and then use the money saved to give money to her siblings?
Comment: @GaneshSittampalam Possibly.  If you did that, you would want to keep clear records on what you spent the money on.


CounterStrike: GO - Xbox 360 controller not moving

Question: I enabled the controller in the settings but I am unable to move in-game using the control sticks. This controller works with most other games that have controller support on steam.
Comment: Voters, please remember to leave a comment when voting to close as unclear if you believe there is important information the question is lacking.
Answer: Against my better judgement I'm going to answer this and hope that one day you play this with the mouse and keyboard.

Run Steam in "Big Picture" mode, which is Steam's attempt at making their interface more console friendly.  (See bottom of post for information on how to activate Big Picture)
Start a game of CSGO, choose your team and open up your console (~). (See bottom of post for info on how to activate your developer console if you haven't already done so).
Type the command: "exec controller.360.cfg", hit enter.
Type the command: "joystick 1", hit enter.

This should allow you to play CSGO with the 360 controller.
To activate Big Picture mode you need to look at the top right corner of your Steam pgoram and find the button that - you guessed it - looks like a video game controller.  Click that then use the new-look Steam you've just activated to browse to your games and launch CSGO.
If you don't already have the console activated (you hit the ~ key and it doesn't open the developer console) you need to go to: Options>Game Settings and set "Enable Developer Console (~)" to "Yes".
Comment: I understand that CS is meant to be played with a mouse but, the game itself has settings to handle a controller. I really don't get why questions like this are almost never answered properly.
Comment: Seriously. Have your own opinions, but "against my better judgement I'm going to answer this...", really?
Comment: @TheAce I imagine that the developers want to encourage people to use mouse and keyboard by making it difficult to play using a controller. It's not impossible, but merely difficult.
Answer: As someone with over 1,000 hours on CS GO with an Xbox 360 controller, I can tell you that you do not need to run joystick 1 or run steam in "Big Picture" mode for a controller to work.
The file controller.360.cfg already contains the line joystick 1 for you. (Although from my experience, CS:GO ignores this and still logs stats as KB/M)
All you have to do, is make sure your controller is plugged in before you start CS:GO, then (this was fixed in an update) when you're starting a game, open the developer console and type in exec controller.360.cfg. Your best bet is to make yourself an autoexec.cfg file that will automatically set up your preferred layout each time you join a game.
Comment: how do you navigate the main menu to find a game using the controller?  i could only do this with a mouse
Comment: @FistOfFury, I don't think the game supports this natively. However, you could reasonably find a program that lets you move the mouse and click using the controller which should allow full navigation and game starting.
Answer: The answer to this is quite simple.

Go into Steam "Big Picture Mode"
Run CSGO from there
Navigate to Settings --> Controller
Make sure Controller Enabled is set to Enabled
Connect your Xbox 360 controller and make sure that steam recognizes it(you can do this in Settings --> Controller in Steam Big Picture Mode)
Go back to Settings and click Controller, which will open up a steam interface which lets your control exactly what each input does in the game

I hope this helps.
Answer: Its actually so easy. At the home screen go into options and then press controller. Then press enable. This worked for me.
Comment: Didn't for me, not sure how it worked for you.


1940s Typeface Identification

Question: I am looking for the "Swissair" font.
Comment: Welcome to **GDSE** - please take a look around at [tour] to get a sense of our community as a whole, then look at [ask] and [answer] a question, so you can learn how to frame a query well, and what to expect from replies. Please also specifically look over https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1083/what-are-the-requirements-for-font-identification-questions and refine your query once you've done so - thanks!
Answer: This is a specific type of lettering with a "techno" image that was popular in the 1930s and 40s. The basic idea is being quite high-contrast but modernist in feeling, sometimes with and sometimes without serifs. This specific image is definitely not a font-people didn't use fonts for corporate logos in the 1940s, they would have an artist draw a custom one.
If you want something similar with minimal serifs, Corvinus is a popular font that is similar-there are several official and unofficial digitizations; Skyline is renamed. Quirinus is from the same period.
If you want a sans-serif, Domaine Sans by Klim is really excellent, and his blogpost on its design lists a lot of similar sans-serifs from the period he looked at as influences. Peristyle is new and feature-packed.
Many of the above typefaces never had italics, or they aren't available in all digitizations, but there are some. If what you specifically want is the same hyper-slant, I doubt you're going to find anything exactly similar. (Whatever you do, don't hyper-slant an existing font-it always looks awful.) Stradivarius is probably closest, it's a script based on the same kind of lettering. Mondial also has italics styled for display typography with extremely high contrast.
Comment: Actually, another recommendation: Tzigane by Albert Bolton. Strongly slanted, very like this design.
Answer: It may be an old typeface edited for this logo which eventually never got digitalized. If you are looking for a close match, I would suggest you to use a tool like WhatTheFont, which detects and tries to guess what font you input. The closest match for your image is Tzigane Regular, even though is pretty different (w is curvier in the original, and r hook is more pronounced) it could be a nice alternative to recreate the look and feel.

1940s Typeface Identification


How to clean a copper kettle?

Question: My GF bought a kettle with copper finish. Looked really nice until water stains started to leave marks on it. It is now almost entirely covered with those darker gray-ish marks which I assume are some sort of oxidation. Is there a safe way to clean this?
Comment: Is it a real copper kettle or a metal kettle which has a (very) thin layer of copper or even just a copper coloured finish?
Comment: Unless it is solid copper I would not dare to clean it in the ways I know, sorry.
Answer: Lemon juice or diluted vinegar (say 1:1), a rag and patience. Gentle and light scrubbing. Rinse afterwards and dry thoroughly.
The bad news is that it is not going to last very long. Even if you are not using at all, depending on your ambient humidity and temperature, it will tarnish again, albeit perhaps uniformly. It is still better to remove the oxide spots early. The longer you leave them, the deeper the oxidation goes. Every time you get rid of the oxide, you are actually removing a tiny layer of metal. So, if you have a copper plated kettle, at some point, you will expose the underlying metal. If it is solid copper, that does not matter too much.
Other than greyish black oxide, you can also have greenish carbonates too.
You can meticulously dry off all the water on the the copper surface especially before you heat it, and store it in a dry cool place, you can slow down the oxidation process.
Alternatively, let it tarnish and develop some character.

Is it an electric kettle or a manual one? A manual one on an open flame (electrical stove is fine) will make things harder for you because of water and carbon dioxide from the combustion products.
Comment: I am reasonably sure that copper acetate formation requires heating and more concentrated acetic acid. With more diluted acetic (vinegar is typically 5% w/w), you will need an oxidiser as well as heat. The reaction is not instantaneous either. So, I think diluted vinegar is pretty safe. And copper acetate is unmistakably blue. Happy to be corrected if wrong on this.
Comment: Vinegar could make copper acetate, which isn't healthy at all - if you use vinegar, make sure there is NO green stuff on any food contacting surfaces afterwards.

How to clean a copper kettle?


Scribus - Vertically Align Text Within A Text Frame

Question: How do I vertically align text within a Scribus text frame?
Comment: To clarify: I have a 7.4590 in wide x 0.9810 in high text frame with one line of 55.0 pt text (font Century Schoolbook Regular). Scribus, by default, places the text in the upper-left corner of the text frame. The text consumes about 0.5 in, vertically, of the text frame. I want to know how (if possible) I can vertically align the text within the text frame so it is centered with approximately 0.25 of white space above and below the text. This is easily accomplished in Microsoft Publisher; just seeing if I can do it in Scribus.
Answer: Using Scribus 1.5.4:

Right-click on a text box and select Text Properties;
Click on Column & Text Distances;
On the first line, change Vertical Alignment to the desired value (for example Middle).

No need for scripts, manual margins or black magic.
Comment: @iokevins Thanks for keeping up with this! Damn, vertical alignment is a mess _everywhere_.
Comment: From @tzs below: "Just a note to Kyll's accepted answer: 1.5.4 is not in the stable branch, but it is a development release. This may be interesting when someone wonders after installing 1.4.8 (latest stable). However, it really works, nice improvement from the development team."
Answer: Using Scribus 1.4.6, the following script center (vertical) align the content of a text frame by Alessandro Rimoldi was able to vertically align the text within a text frame:

doing so automatically even when the linespacing and/or the first line offset is changed afterwards
and with multiple paragraphs of different styles

Here is the script (if needed, a brief instruction on how to use the script follows these lines of code):
#!/usr/bin/python
"""
this script adjust the top and bottom distance of a text frame
to exactly put its content in the middle of the frame
@author: alessandro rimoldi
@version: 1.0 / 20090209
@copyright (c) 2009 alessandro rimoldi under the mit license
           http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html
"""
import sys
try:
   import scribus
except ImportError:
   print "This script only works from within Scribus"
   sys.exit(1)

# check that the selection is one text frame and get that frame
frame_n = scribus.selectionCount()
if frame_n == 0 :
    scribus.messageBox('Error:', 'No frame selected');
    sys.exit(1)
elif frame_n > 1 :
    scribus.messageBox('Error:', 'You may select only one frame');
    sys.exit(1)

frame = scribus.getSelectedObject(0)
try:
    char_n = scribus.getTextLength(frame)
except scribus.WrongFrameTypeError:
    scribus.messageBox('Error:', 'You may only adjust text frames');
    sys.exit(1)

if char_n == 0 :
    scribus.messageBox('Error:', 'You can\'t adjust an empty frame');
    sys.exit(1)

if (scribus.textOverflows(frame) == 1) :
    scribus.messageBox('Error:', 'You can\' center a text which is overflowing');
    sys.exit(1)

# get some page and frame measure

(x, y) = scribus.getPosition(frame)

(w, h) = scribus.getSize(frame)

original_height = h

(dl, dr, dt, db) = scribus.getTextDistances();

scribus.setTextDistances(dl, dr, 0, 0);

# if the frame doesn't overflow, shorten it to make it overflow
while ((scribus.textOverflows(frame) == 0) and (h > 0)) :
    h -= 10
    scribus.sizeObject(w, h, frame)

# resize the frame in 10pt steps
while (scribus.textOverflows(frame) > 0) :
    h += 10
    scribus.sizeObject(w, h, frame)

# undo the latest 10pt step and fine adjust in 1pt steps
h -= 10
scribus.sizeObject(w, h, frame)

while (scribus.textOverflows(frame) > 0) :
    h += 1
    scribus.sizeObject(w, h, frame)

scribus.sizeObject(w, original_height, frame)

dt = (original_height - h) / 2

scribus.setTextDistances(dl, dr, dt, dt);

Here is how to use the script:

copy and paste the script in a text document (using bloc note or
notepad for example) with no style formatting applied to the document;
save the document as a .py file, calling it whatever name you want;
in Scribus, select the text frame;
go to Script (next to Extras) in the main menu at the top, then select Execute Scripts...;
a Run Script window appears in which you select the .py file you have created;
press OK.

The text inside the selected text frame will then be vertically centred.
I could experience at least two drawbacks with this script:

it is necessary to rerun the script if either the height or
width of the text frame has been modified
it cannot center the text if it is overflowing as it creates some kind of top and bottom margins (so maybe not ideal for large texts)

This script overcomes the fact that the script mentioned in Jon Bentley's answer did not work for me (in Scribus 1.4.6 at least), showing an error message with the following line:

ValueError: Text distances out of bounds, must be positive.

which is maybe related more to the document than the script itself.
Answer: Select the text frame and hit F2 or right-click and choose properties. Then select the Shape section. There you can set a left margin offset from the edge of the text frame that will align the text in the frame. You can also set tabs and columns if that is more in line with your goal.
Comment: Thanks W_Whalley--bumping the left margin adjusts the horizontal offsets, though. :o)

Bumping the top margin seems to work, but in Scribus the text almost immediately disappears from view, even though it is nowhere near the bottom boundary of the text frame....
Comment: @schultkl, thanks for the clarification. Using your text frame size and a 54 pt font, I set the text offset to baseline of characters to -20% and approximately centered the text in the frame. Increasing the text box height to 1 inch let me do it with 55 pt font. Increasing the height of the text frame is no problem because text frames can overlap.
Answer: Surprisingly for such a simple and common feature, there doesn't appear to be an option for this in Scribus as of version 1.4.5. Here are three workarounds (none of which are ideal solutions unfortunately), one of which is based on @W_Whalley's answer (which is out of date for Scribus' current UI):
Manually set the spacing within the text frame
Adapted from @W_Whalley's answer:

Open Properties for the text frame (select and press F2, or right click and select Properties).
Select the Text tab.
Open the Columns & Text Distances drop-down.
Adjust the margins to achieve the desired alignment.

Disadvantages:

You will have to work out the margins manually.
It will only result in an approximation unless you work hard to calculate the margins.
You will have to redo it every time you make a change that alters the alignment.

Align the text frame itself within another object
Based on the suggested solution on the Scribus Wiki:

Surround the text frame with another object (e.g. another text frame).
Select the inner frame and the outer frame together in that order (using the shift key).
Open the Align and Distribute window.
Set Relative to to Last Selected.
Click Centre on horizontal axis.

Disadvantages:

It is imprecise due to the text not being vertically aligned within the inner text frame.
You will have to redo it every time you make a change that alters the alignment.

Use a script

Use this script from the Scribus Wiki.

I have not personally tried this option so can't confirm how effective it is. From the description it would appear to solve most of the disadvantages of the other two methods leaving just one:

You will have to redo it every time you make a change that alters the alignment.


What objective criteria can be used in staffing a project with engineers?

Question: Being a project manager what objective criteria do you use when recruiting new technical engineers to your project? Typically their resumes are full of magic buzz words. How to select the right person, objectively?
Answer: An objective answer will be difficult, because hiring is not only about technical skills. One of the first thing I try to know is: will it be OK to work side-to-side with this person? Human qualities are, in my opinion, at least as important as technical skills.
How can you know? First, when you are reading a resume, look at the projects the candidate has done. Try to determine the involvement level of the person in technology. Did (s)he choose this job because (s)he likes it, or just because companies are giving away lots of money to get it done? For example, in IT, involvement in personal projects is a good clue.
The interview is of course the main moment to determine involvement and human qualities. I ask questions like: "Why did you chose IT for a living?", "Are you autonomous in your work?", "What was your favorite course during your studies?", "Tell me about something you are proud of", "What's the last book you have read?", "What have you learned during your summer jobs?" (for beginners), "What would you say if I said this interview is going all wrong?", "How would you rate me as an interviewer?" or "Tell me about your hobbies." (Note that some countries restrict what questions you can ask during an interview.) The purpose is to encourage the candidate to open up, in order to see if you will be able to work with them.
Answer: Give them a sample problem or set of problems to solve.
These should be generated by senior members of the team they'll be working with and they should relate to the type of projects they'll be working on.
Answer: Just because a resume is full of buzz words, it doesn't mean that the candidate has solid skills. Pick the technologies or subject areas that are most vital to the job that you are interviewing for, and ignore all of the others, then ask questions about the person's detailed knowledge in these key areas. Ask questions like "how" and "why", and probe deeply into their answers to see whether their knowledge is superficial or in-depth.
But ignore the human side at your peril. For most jobs I would tend to take a person with sufficient technical skills  and the right interpersonal skills and personal competencies, rather than someone who is a deep technical wizard but doesn't fit the team. There will be exceptions, but that has worked well for me in the past.
Answer: Try to match the technical requirements with their technical knowledge.
You can also present what is the project, what is the goals to be achieved and ask them their thoughts and experiences on similar projects.
If you have some technical background it will be easier to share information and to understand theirs thoughts.
Maybe you can adapt The Joel Test to find a better way to recruit them. Specially if a specifically technical knowledge is required, probably you will have to apply a technical test because:

Would you hire a magician without
  asking them to show you some magic
  tricks? Of course not.

Somehow, you have to understand their world to recruit them. It is hard to list some objective criteria it will depend on what skills the project demands and when talking to them it will depend on their communications skills.
Maybe the The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0) can help you.


College Economics Student in Support of Crypto Looking for Live Hashrate Data

Question: I am a college economics student doing a Thesis project in support of the long term viability of Crypto. Does anyone know where I can get live Hashrate data for free or for sale? I appreciate it - thank you!
Answer: You can get a current estimate of this info by running the bitcoin-core full node software and calling the command:
bitcoin-cli getnetworkhashps


Can we submit accepted and online published IEEE journal (IEEE-JBHI) article to arXiv?

Question: I was reading that submitting a research article to arXiv gives it better visibility. I was wondering if I can submit a research article that is accepted and published in the IEEE-JBHI, to arXiv?
Answer: Based on few research on the question, I found the following:
As per the IEEE policy,

Can an author post his manuscript on a preprint server such as ArXiv?
Yes. The IEEE recognizes that many authors share their unpublished
manuscripts on public sites. Once manuscripts have been accepted for
publication by IEEE, an author is required to post an IEEE copyright
notice on his preprint. Upon publication, the author must replace the
preprint with either 1) the full citation to the IEEE work with
Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) or a link to the paper's abstract in
IEEE Xplore, or 2) the accepted version only (not the IEEEpublished
version), including the IEEE copyright notice and full citation, with
a link to the final, published paper in IEEE Xplore.
What other steps are necessary for authors who would like to post
their accepted articles?
The following copyright notice must be displayed on the initial screen displaying IEEE copyrighted material:
© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission
from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or
future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for
advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works,
for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any
copyrighted component of this work in other works.

And as per ArXiv,

Note on IEEE submissions. Please note arXiv will currently take the
'Accepted' IEEE version but not the 'Published' IEEE version. For more
information on IEEE policies.

More Info:
IEEE Author FAQ 1, IEEE Author FAQ 1, arXiv Submission
Answer: If your paper has already been published then you were required to sign a copyright release assigning the copyright to the IEEE. As such, your ability to post your paper on arXiv depends on the language and wording of that contract. As with any such matter, it is best to consult a lawyer.
However, in my inexpert opinion, you are probably not allowed to do this unless JBHI has an unusual copyright agreement (and a quick Google search suggests this is not the case).
According to the standard IEEE copyright agreement (emphasis mine):
Authors/employers may reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the Work, material extracted verbatim from the Work, or derivative works for the
author's personal use or for company use, provided that the source and the IEEE copyright notice are indicated, the copies are not used in any way that
implies IEEE endorsement of a product or service of any employer, and the copies themselves are not offered for sale.
And later in the same document:
Although authors are permitted to re-use all or portions of the Work in other works, this does not include granting third-party requests for reprinting,
republishing, or other types of re-use. The IEEE Intellectual Property Rights office must handle all such third-party requests.
Posting your work to arXiv in this case looks to me like unauthorized reproduction.
Comment: This is not the case. arXiv allows IEEE article submissions. You may check this link https://arxiv.org/help/submit_pdf
Answer: The policy of IEEE-JBHI allows the following according to Sherpa/RoMEO:

Author's pre-print on Author's personal website, employers website or publicly accessible server
Author's post-print on Author's server or Institutional server

But they have some very specific conditions what to do after the article has been published like adding a copyright statement to the pre-print. Please check the Sherpa/RoMEO link for detailed information.
Since they have no policy regarding arXiv, I'd suggest to contact the editor.


Fresh cream versus butter and buttermilk

Question: I buy fresh cream and shake it off to get butter and buttermilk for baking.  Would there be any difference if I add the fresh cream directly into the dough instead of the separated butter and buttermilk?
Answer: Yes, for two reasons. First, baking involves much more complex chemistry than other cooking, and can be sensitive to things like the the precise way in which things are mixed. Creaming butter and sugar, for example, is not just about combining the ingredients but about developing a texture. Things like development of protein strands and air bubbles and emulsions are vital.
Secondly, the "buttermilk" that remains from making butter isn't likely to be much like the buttermilk in your recipe. When a baking recipe calls for buttermilk, they probably mean cultured buttermilk, which is the leftover stuff with cultures added to it and allowed to ferment like yogurt.


Sitecore 9.0 update 1 and Solr version

Question: I noticed slight differences in the Solr version for Sitecore 9 update 1. Here 6.6.1 is mentioned whereas the installation guide has 6.6.2. Does the initial 9 release need 6.6.1 and update 1 requires 6.6.2?
Answer: Do not use SOLR 6.6.1 due to a Solr Bug that has been identified.
Use SOLR 6.6.2, which is the recommended version.  The KB article has not been updated to reflect this except in footnote:

Solr server can try to initialize a Solr core twice, resulting in the
  following error:

<code>> org.apache.solr.common.SolrException: Unable to create core
> [core_name] ... Caused by:
> org.apache.lucene.store.LockObtainFailedException: Lock held by this
> virtual machine:
> C:\solr-6.6.1\server\solr\core_name\data\index\write.lock The error is
> caused by a Solr bug: SOLR-11297
</code>

The issue does not affect Sitecore functionality and can be ignored.
  To resolve the issue, upgrade Solr to 6.6.2.
Comment: Is there anything written in the Sitecore specs about getting the recommended Solr version to a non dead version or LTS version?
Comment: Nothing written in docs. Lots of folks have had no problem using the LTS version.

Sitecore 9.0 update 1 and Solr version


Connecting Raspberry Pi to laptop

Question: So I got a raspberry pi 3 as a gift and my only spare monitor and keyboard is my laptop, a cheap lenovo ideapad. The laptop is thin and light, so it lacks an Ethernet cable which means I can't follow any of the tutorials on how to connect it by that. The laptop has an hdmi, 2 usbs headphone jack, microsd and that is it, anyone know how to use the keyboard and screen from a laptop for a pi without ethernet?
Comment: Do you have a router?
Comment: USB on the laptop?
Answer: What you are looking for is a way to setup a headless Raspberry Pi without ever needing to connect it to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
This easiest way I have found to do this is by using PiBakery to image your Pi's SD Card, since you can specify your WiFi login details and enable the VNC server all from your laptop.
So basically, install and use PiBakery to image the SD Card providing your WiFi details and enabling VNC, then insert the SD Card in the Pi and connect it to power.
Then install VNC Viewer on your laptop, open it and go to 'raspberry.local', enter 'pi' as username and 'raspberry' for the password, and you are in.
Finally, go to Preferences, Raspberry Pi Configuration, and Set Resolution to DMT mode 85 1280x720 for example, and restart your Pi, so you'll get a bigger resolution via VNC on your headless Pi.
Answer: Get this cable:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/954
You Can connect this cable to Raspberry Pi and can have direct terminal access.

Its very easy.
Then configure WiFi on RPI and install program called VNC server on Raspberry Pi.
Using VNC you can access User Interface of RPI directly on your chrome browser in Laptop. You will need Chrome extension for VNC Client.

Connecting Raspberry Pi to laptop


Examples of Romans repeating early stages of the cursus honorum

Question: In some special cases, Romans held lower offices than some they had already held, for example Quaestor while having been a consul before.
I understand that senators, expelled by the censors for various reasons, had to gain entry to the senate once more and tried to restore their former rank by starting the cursus honorum anew.
There is also the case of Agrippa, being Aedilis while consular for the purpose of urban works.
Other than that, I can't find examples of Romans willingly going down the cursus honorum ladder. That is puzzling to me, as huge advantages were to be gained (i.e. the opportunity of staging the Roman games, provincial commands after the Praetorship, etc.). Beside that, a consular holding a second Quaestorship, for example, remained consular, so there was no rank loss.
The same is true for the tribunes of the plebs. Obviously, their vetoing power (and more) should have been tempting for consular plebeians.
Are there examples of senior politicians having tried to hold junior offices and/or tribunate of the plebs?
I'm also interested in examples of Romans holding several times the same office before going up (e.g. Quaestor-Aedilis-Praetor-Praetor-Consul).
Answer: Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, consul, censor, and Princeps Senatus in the late republic took over the management of the grain supply, essentially an Aedile's post.  In Colleen McCulloch's semi-fiction books he did this when the man originally having the post was (falsely) accused of corruption, IIRC.
The Wiki Quote goes way too far in claiming that this post would routinely go to a consular, or an ex-censor, in my opinion.
From Wiki:

As leader of the Roman senate he was often sent abroad to settle
  disputes amongst foreign kings. In 109 BC, he was elected censor in
  partnership with Marcus Livius Drusus, who died in the next year
  putting an end to the censorship. As censor, he ordered the
  construction of the Via Aemilia Scaura and restored several bridges.
  In 104 BC, he became responsible for Rome's grain supply. This was a
  very important office, given only to the most trustworthy persons,
  because the happiness of the population (and absence of mutinies)
  depended on it. Scaurus was throughout his political career the leader
  of the aristocratic conservative faction of the senate.
Comment: Upvote because I didn't think of the Cura Annona, but that wasn't part of the usual cursus so that's not exactly what I was looking for.
Comment: Its one of the jobs Aedlies did, routinely.  Cicero boosted his popularity by getting grain cheap as an aedile rather than by hosting expensive games.


qualcomm atheros 168c0042-rev-30

Question: i can't get my laptop WiFi up and running with ubuntu (Kernel 4.4.0-22-generic).
I have a Qualcomm Atheros 168c:0042 pci adapter.
Things I already tried:

The solution from this question (installing the firmware from git repo):
Qualcomm Atheros Device [168c:0042] (rev 30) Wi-Fi driver installation
I also tried using another Kernel (4.5 & 4.6), which showed some result.
There was a menu which i could use to connect to my WiFi, but i still
could not use the connection (no internet).
Install a backport (like described in the question above)
Format c:

Is there something new i could try??? I'm kind of desperate, because i already invested round about 8-10 hours into the matter =/ Any help is appreciated!

Infos:
cat /proc/version
Linux version 4.4.0-22-generic (buildd@lcy01-32) (gcc version 5.3.1 20160413 (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2) ) #39-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 5 16:53:32 UTC 2016

dmesg | grep ath10k
[    5.342231] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: pci irq msi interrupts 1 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
[    5.610265] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:02:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[    7.859610] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: qca9377 hw1.0 (0x05020000, 0x003820ff sub 1a3b:2231) fw WLAN.TF.1.0-00267-1 fwapi 5 bdapi 2 htt-ver 3.1 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp max-sta 32 raw 0 hwcrypto 1 features ignore-otp
[    7.859619] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 1 dfs 0 testmode 0
[    7.925725] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0

sudo lshw -c network

  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Qualcomm Atheros
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlp2s0
       version: 30
       serial: 80:a5:89:02:1a:d9
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=4.4.0-22-generic firmware=WLAN.TF.1.0-00267-1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
       resources: irq:317 memory:81000000-811fffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: bnep0
       serial: 80:a5:89:02:1a:d8
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.44.105 multicast=yes

lshw -vvnn
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros Device [168c:0042] (rev 30)
Subsystem: AzureWave Device [1a3b:2231]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx+
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 317
Region 0: Memory at 81000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
Kernel modules: ath10k_pci

Answer: Upgrade the kernel to linux-image-extra-4.13.0-1005-azure-edge
Worked first time:-)
Comment: are you sure the problem this solved for you was the same as OP's? Can you clarify at all?

qualcomm atheros 168c0042-rev-30


Could there be life beneath the surface of Mars or moons?

Question: I realize radiation and extreme temperatures would probably destroy life on the surface of most planets and moons, but could life exist beneath the surface (e.g. like earth worms on earth)?
Answer: That's one of the big questions. ESA scientists, at least, think it's worth looking for underground life. See ExoMars mission.
More likely than earth worms are microbes, since some microbes on Earth live under similar conditions as presumed for underground Mars.
Answer: I asked a question on the same topic few months ago : Could any known, living organisms on Earth survive on Mars?
The answer from dotancohen pointed the Tardigrade that can live in extreme conditions.
The other life forms I mentioned may also be resistant to extreme conditions.
Answer: Some of our gas giant's icey moons are thought to have liquid water interiors. Tidal flexing is thought to be a source of heat.
Earth's smoker ecosystem demonstrate life can thrive sans sunlight. This Nasa article talks about Smoker colonies and the possibility of life beneath the surface of icey moons like Europa.
Answer: And define "life". It's conceivable that lifeforms exist that are for example silicon based, don't need oxygen, and can survive in hard vacuum, even directly use gamma and X-rays the way plants on earth photosynthesise visible light.
Such could well survive there, even thrive. But would we even recognise them as alive?
Comment: @Jonathan to quote Mr Spock: "it's life Jim, but not as we know it" ;)
Comment: Interesting theory, I haven't thought of that before!  It appears that the definition of life isn't fully defined e.g. refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology
Answer: While such locations might be habitable to some (of Earth's) lifeforms, for life to actually exist there it must also be an originable location for life (or somehow had life transported to it). The origin of life on Earth is a big unknown. For sure, Earth was a very different place when it happened and it could've happened underground.
Comment: Of course it's known.    Genesis 1.


Classification vs Regression Model what should I choose?

Question: I am working on a problem like 'customers next month revenue prediction'. Here revenue will be the target variable. Again we actually segment the customers based on there revenue(like if they give less than 200 they will be in category 'A' else 'B'). I have to predict both(provable revenue + category). What will be the right approach, choose a regression model and predict the revenue and then categorized or i should choose separate model(regression for revenue, classification for category).
Answer: The segmentation sounds rather arbitrary if it is simply a reflection of the revenue you are trying to predict rather than having been derived from other bjective data that then predicts revenue it is unlikely to add very much (though obviously past revenue is a good predict of future revenue - the question is does the sementation improve the prediction vs just using the past data.
So if it were me I would be inclined to do the following:
(1)  try some dimension reduction and/or clustering to explore whether or not you really have meaningful customer segments rather than just an arbitrary cutoffs by revenue.
(2) if you have a good segmentation try creating a customer classifer to predict segment memberhip
(3) if your classifier has some value use the (non-linear) segment prediction as a additional input to a regression to predict revenue.
(4) validate and/or test the model against some reserved data not just the main data set.
With any regression though correct model specification is vital. So the first thing you need to do is explore the dataset (plot lots of stuff against lots of other stuff, look at some distributions, etc) to try and understand its structure before you specify a model.
Particulary, if your primary data source is the time series of past sales you probably need to look at including mean-reversion and momentum terms in the specification (see ARM, ARIMA etc models ).
(5) It would also be fun to try a Recurrent Neural Network, though I have never done this myself.
Answer: if you can apply dummy operation like if ... else ... to get categories then choose regression since you have to predict revenue, also it will "tell" your model that some cutomers will give very big revenue some very little which will surely improve performance in category prediction
Comment: But category can be define after i get the revenue ( which need to be forecast).
Comment: sure and that's why I think that approach in this answer is a way to go
Answer: First, you need to predict the future revenues based on previous data. For this you can try Time Series Prediction. Basically, you will have a recurrent neural network which works as a regression model and predicts the future revenues.
Once the model is trained, we are ready to predict the future revenues. Feed the model all the data from the previous records and then generate a prediction.
Using multiple if ... else statements, you can easily check whether in which category the predicted revenue value lies.
Check out this and this.


Baking soda & magnesium chloride reactions

Question:
Woke to this interesting reaction.
Would love any explanation of this occurrence. If it is perfectly common then I apologize for my ignorance. The mag was trace in the clear glass suspended over the white glass jar that had a strong mixture of baking soda and water. They are not touching and are as I found them. Look carefully and you can see the "gel puddle" that formed on my dish drainer. There are slight bubbles in the gel.
Or is it ectoplasm from the ghost?  (Lol)
Comment: duplicate:-http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/4046/what-is-the-reaction-between-magnesium-chloride-and-sodium-bicarbonate
Answer: It is difficult to reconstruct what actually happened based on a single picture.
Nevertheless, the essential effects seem to be the hygroscopy and deliquescence of magnesium chloride. Magnesium chloride has a strong affinity for moisture. When exposed to the atmosphere, the salt will absorb relatively large amounts of water from the air. Magnesium chloride can form several crystalline hydrates: $\ce{MgCl2.2H2O}$, $\ce{MgCl2.4H2O}$, $\ce{MgCl2.6H2O}$, $\ce{MgCl2.8H2O}$, and $\ce{MgCl2.12H2O}$. Furthermore, the salt absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a concentrated liquid solution.
Apparently, the concentrated liquid solution of magnesium chloride ran out of the glass vessel and formed a puddle on the dish drainer.


PHP framework for ADR (Action Domain Responder) Pattern

Question: I just got to know about ADR (Action Domain Responder) pattern that seems to be much more efficient than MVC (Model View Controller), but as oppose to MVC, I have it difficult to find a framework for ADR. The reason must be its age, it is so young. But still does anyone knows a PHP(or any other languages) framework that implements ADR?
Answer: Symfony 2 is not really a MVC based framework. A controller can be any callable; so you can use it for ADR.
Some links explaining how use controllers as actions:

https://github.com/symfony/symfony/issues/11594
http://php-and-symfony.matthiasnoback.nl/2014/06/framework-independent-controllers-part-3/

It could also be a good idea to use controllers to instantiate and parameterize your actions; so an action don't have to know if it was asked from an HTTP request or console command, for example.
Comment: Well I do not know symfony, so I ask a few questions. 1- What about responses? The controller generates the response, or it is dealth with in a separate class? 2- Also is each action a totally separate class?
Comment: 1. By default, if your controller returns a string, a new response will be created and your string used as the body. But, yes, the controller can instantiate itself the response object or ask for it to the responder. 2. It's a common practice, in Symfony, to group actions in a controller, but, as I said, a controller can be any callable so it can have only one method, and this method can be "__invoke" so the controller is callable itself, and usable as an action.
Comment: Well so if I am correct, we can mention laravel here too
Comment: Yes we can. But, IMHO, Laravel's target is small to medium applications and it is very much "CRUD oriented". With Laravel, you can quickly create small CRUD API, but it seriously lack of robustness for bigger applications (I'm experiencing this right now), especially with Eloquent (Laravel's ORM). Since you're interested in the ADR pattern, I suppose you consider a big application since the ADR pattern is almost useless for smallest applications.
Comment: In summary, Symfony has some common practice and default choices, but it will never block you to create your own ways. At the opposite, Laravel is very "opinionated"; it allows you to develop quickly when you follow already designed ways, but it will be very difficult to go out of the way. And ADR is clearly not a common way.


How do I make my users comment on blog posts?

Question: I have a blog with 100 visits per days, and I have installed a Disqus comment section. But after a month I have still no comments! I tried some call to action on my articles post, but it doesn't work... How can I make my users comment on my content?
Answer: Rule number one: You ask specific questions.
Not:

I wonder what other people think about this

But:

What do you think about this? Leave a comment

... and Leave a comment should be a link (anything that makes it easy to comment)
Not:

What do you think about this?

But:

Is X workable?
  Should I have chosen Y?
  What have you done to solve this?

Preferably as the last sentence of your blog post
Maybe also start the post with that question - you could even make it the title.
Answer: Another suggestion - If you have personal relationships with any of your readers, you can always send them a note to check out your blog and request that they leave a compelling comment on your blog. I've found that if you're sharing meaningful content and transparent with your intentions, people are willing to lend a hand. For example:
Hi X! I just published this article that was inspired by your research on XX and I think my readers would love your additional insight! If you have a free moment, please read and comment. Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Answer: You can start by commenting your self.
Ask a couple of friends to comment and start a discussion, this might help catch the attention and reduce friction to post the first comment.
Answer: I'd also suggest in addition to the points raised above:

Are you writing content that informs, or content that invites discussion?  If it's the former, then maybe people don't feel a need to comment because you've answered their question or given them the information they were seeking (maybe take a look at bounce rate, which might be high if this is the case). In that case, maybe a CTA like "if this post helped you, please leave a comment below!" might encourage them to comment.
Use your Analytics/Search Console/answerthepublic.com data to dig into what questions people are asking about your topics of interest, and use that to generate content around that area which proposes some ways to address those questions but leaves some areas open for discussion
Leverage social media to open up discussions around the topics you're covering.  Research who talks about those topics and mention them when you share the post inviting comment

You could also write a post specifically asking people what they would like to know about, or have a poll on social media to generate ideas for content. Once you write the content up, you can then directly mention those people and invite them to add their thoughts.
Finally, are you leaving thoughtful, engaging comments on the blogs/articles of others?  I'm often much more likely to leave a comment on someone's articles if they are an active responder to my own content. It's worth a thought - do as you would like others to do!


What could be causing my condensation dryer to have standing water under the heating exchanger?

Question: Our zanussi zdc68560w condensation dryer leaks water from the heat exchanger. There is water in the water tank but also some is leaking from the front of the machine and sitting water under the heat exchanger. The black cardboard/plastic  underneath the machine is a bit bent near the right hand side. Is something blocked or another cause?
Answer: Condenser dryers generate water, just like an air conditioner does. If water is leaking out, then either the water collection tank is full and overflowing, or the drain is clogged and overflowing.
Answer: Do you have the drain kit installed?  It is an option available from the appliance dealer.  See page 6 of this.
If not, you will have to manually empty the condensate (see page 7).  The dryer has only a 4.3 litre capacity (see page 55), probably not enough for more than 2 or 3 loads.
If the condensate tank is empty, then consider that a clothes dryer produces a lot of lint.  It is a fair bet that some lint or other debris has mixed with the drainage water to clog it.
Answer: After two visits from the appliance engineer it turned out to be a combination of:

a stuck widget (?)that didn't stop the collection tank at the bottom back of the machine from overflowing and
the machine itself was not completely level. This is required so that the water is transported into the collection tank rather than to the front of the machine where it leaks out.


Adding Family to friends on steam

Question: Been trying to add my brother as a friend who was already in family on steam once I made my account but when I try to add him his name doesn't come up, anyone know how to do it ?
Comment: You have to search for his profile, click the button to friend him, then he has to accept it.
Comment: @Keavon why not post that as an answer.
Answer: Searching for other profiles in the Steam Client has not always been as easy as it should be. A fail-safe way to find your friend and add him, is be asking him to go to his profile in his browser. Then he'll copy his URL (it should look something like http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198017813554/), and send it to you. Then you can open this URL in your browser (remember to log in), and add him there.
If the problem still persists, please try Steam Support.
Comment: I just want to emphasize that IMHO this is the best solution. The search function of Steam is really buggy and I often could not find friends even though I entered their names exactly. The profile ID is unique, so it has to work.
Comment: The problem is that Steam tends to search by username rather than display name.  Which you can't ever change.  Really old steam accounts use email addresses, so my steam username is an email address I haven't used in 7+ years.

Adding Family to friends on steam


Any Maestro ATM in the US?

Question: I just got some compensation for missed flight from the airline in Europe, and they gave it as Easy Cash maestro card. I live in the states and will not be back to Europe any time soon, so I wonder if it's possible to cash that card on the US. I can't find any ATMs online around New England area that accept maestro. Any ideas?
Comment: Did you actually try any ATM? I have a (Dutch) Maestro card, but never had any problems with (most) ATM's in the US. Usually there will be a Maestro logo on the machine, but if it isn't, it might still work. https://www.reference.com/business-finance/can-cirrus-atm-locations-fc618eea88d2b741 claims that *Most ATMs in the USA accept Cirrus, Maestro and Plus cards*
Comment: Marstro is issued by Mastercard so you can try an ATM which can cash a MasterCard.
Comment: Try the card anyway. Maestro ought to work at nearly any US ATM, at least if it is a bank's ATM. Your luck may vary with private ATMs.
Answer: If an ATM accepts Mastercard, it will, at least in the US, also accept Maestro cards. I would assume that in realtiy, it means that any ATM should be good enough.
To be sure, you can use Mastercard's online ATM locator to find an ATM near your location. Under the 'more options' tab, you can explicitely select that you only want to find ATMs accepting Maestro cards. Edit: At least here in Germany, the Maestro search filter does not seem to work as it should. The search tool can't find Maestro ATMs in any of the larger German cities, although in practice, all (or almost all) German ATMs will accept Maestro cards.
Comment: According to that locator tool, ATMs accepting International Maestro cards are rather thin on the ground in New England.  I tried searching for a few towns, and there are several sizeable New England towns (Providence, RI;  Amherst, MA;  Nashua, NH;  Portland, ME) where there are no results within 25 miles.  And there are only two results within 25 miles of Boston, a rather sizeable metro area.
Comment: @MichaelSeifert You are right. Perhaps the Maestro 'filter' does not work as it should. Where I live in Germany, I can also not find any Maestro ATMs with the search tool, although all ATMs in Germany in reality will accept Maestro cards.
Comment: I can confirm that the Maestro card worked in a few random ATMs in the US (that didn't have Maestro logo, just Visa and Mastercard). So, it looks like it would work in any ATM that accepts Mastercard.
Moreover, I was able to pay with that card at a supermarket.

Any Maestro ATM in the US?


Can water be pumped from an unused well to a home site?

Question: I am having some land subdivided to build on, and the orig property has 2 wells, one which is not being used. If it is viable, how would I get water from that well to my house, to avoid digging another well? I would first check with the proper authority to be sure of the legality and than notify the present property owner (if any) of course, before any work was attempted.
Comment: This is a legal question, that should be answered by a lawyer. Not a do-it-yourself home improvement question.
Comment: are you asking HOW to move the water from the well? or Can you pump the water and not be liable for theft?
Comment: Presumably you'd need a right-of-way of some sort to the well. Making use of it would involve digging a trench to run a pipe and wiring (below frost line), and ensuring there is access to it for servicing or in case of problems. If the property owner chose to build a deck or stone patio over it, for example, it could be impossible or very expensive to service.
Comment: You'd also have to assess if it's worthwhile in terms of water quality, quantity, and extra cost. The extra trench distance, cost for right-of-way, costs to re-mediate the stagnant well (likely requiring at least a clean-out), landscaping repair costs from construction, etc, may mean you'd be better off just drilling a new well. If the water quality is low, that could also increase treatment system costs: sometimes if you go too deep you get salt; if it's a dug well or a poorly-sealed drilled well, it can get contaminated surface water.
Answer: One method would be to subdivide in such a way that you own the well - kinda like a gerrymandered congressional district. The other would be some form of right-of-way - but that does veer off into legal questions we don't address here, so I won't go there. But that assumes many things about its worth that we don't know; Many of which you probably don't, either.

In many cases the presence of two wells on a property, one unused, indicates that the (apparent) "spare" was the first, unsuccessful, well and is disused for a good reason.

Depending on how far the well is from your building site, the cost of trenching and supplying power to the pump can greatly exceed the cost of a new well. Trenches are not cheap, and neither is wire, especially if it has to be large wire because it's a long run. There are many good reasons to keep the connection to the well short and sweet (I kinda liked the house that actually had it in a small extension of the basement, though that can be somewhat difficult to arrange.) If it's a long way from the well to the house there are many more things that can go wrong, simply due to the length of the run providing more access to modes of failure.
To get to the meat of your question, in practical terms, assuming the legalities we don't get into are covered, and the well is worth anything (that's a big one) you have a long trench dug to a depth below (ideally well below) frost line and install pipe (possibly of a larger diameter than you might otherwise use due to length of run) and wires or conduit, and wires in conduit (also possibly of a larger diameter than you might otherwise use due to length of run.) You connect those pipes and wires to the pump in the well on one end, and your plumbing and electrical supply on the other. Backfill with sand for at least a foot, and place tape over the wires indicating Buried Electrical Line Below - refill to within 6" of the surface and place another line of BELB tape just below the surface, then fill to grade.


bulk node translation

Question: We have a lot of languages on the site and a node needs to be translated in every one of them.
We create the node in English and then some people translate the content to their language. So when there is no translation available the content remains in English. The translators only have edit permissions for the nodes in there language.
To not have to give them more access we create the nodes that should be translated.
Now when creating a node we have to click translate several times to create a node for every language.  I'm looking for a way to do this in one click.
One way i was thinking of this is by selecting the node to be translated and do something like the existing bulk operations to translate them.
Or by using rules to create a translation for every language when the node is created.
Anyone with experience in this field?
Comment: It might help if you described what modules/setup/etc. you're using to do this?
Answer: Try the Entity translation actions module.
https://www.drupal.org/project/entity_translation_actions

bulk node translation


Why didn't a certain character communicate more to his co-conspirators in Catching Fire?

Question:
 Why didn't Plutarch Heavensbee tell the tributes with whom he was already in communication more about the arena for the Quarter Quell? For example, none of them seemed to know that the arena was a clock. They don't seem to be pretending. For example, Blight (male from District 7) died by running into the force field during a rain of blood. And it's even stranger that he gave Katniss the enigmatic hint "it starts at midnight," a hint that she had little hope of putting to use, if he wasn't going give useful information from people who understood the source was on their side.
Answer: He needed things to happen in a certain way to keep his cover and if people survived then that would probably not be possible. Odds are the "higher ups" would have put 2 and 2 together to find out what was really going on and that would have endangered everyone.
The stakes were high.

After the end of the Games, Seneca Crane is executed, and Plutarch is
  appointed to be the new Head Gamemaker, citing that there were not
  many takers for the job.

It wasn't a war he could fight. He was a survivalist he survived by any means.

As such he was an ingenious strategist but this also caused him to be
  somewhat callous as he showed no concern for people who died in the
  Quarter Quell or the war.

He needed a realistic chain of events to occur, some die, some get killed and some survive.This way he has a good life and life  security if everything goes the way it is suppose to.
Answer: I can't find any canonical evidence, but the most logical answer would be that he was trying to avoid the same fate as Seneca Crane while still helping as many tributes as possible.
Crane, as you probably know, let Peeta and Katniss both win the 74th Hunger Games instead of letting them commit a double-suicide. There was probably a way to have crowned one winner, like using the arena against one person in some way, like when they started the forest fire on Katniss to turn her toward the other tributes, but instead he just let them both win. As a consequence, he was executed.
Heavensbee was obviously on Katniss's side, but he couldn't risk the Capitol finding out about that or else he'd also be executed. He tries to give as many subtle hints about the arena as possible, like showing his Mockingjay watch to Katniss during the Victory Tour. Unfortunately he can't be any more forward about it because the Capitol might figure it out if the tributes know their way around a little too well.
Haymitch tells Katniss that they couldn't risk telling her very much because she could have slipped up while talking to someone and they would've gotten caught.


Can I apply different hyper-parameters for different sliding time windows?

Question: Question

Can I apply different hyper-parameters for different training sets?
I can see the point of using the shared parameters but I cannot see the point of using shared hyper-parameters. The advantage of using the shared parameters is introduced in the following question: Recurrent NNs: what's the point of parameter sharing? Doesn't padding do the trick anyway?

More Details
1) Explanations on My Model
As my model is a stock trading model, I will explain to you how I trade stocks. Please bear with me for explaining how I trade stocks. It is not a long explanation.

I am using Bollinger bands to trade stocks. (All the stock data in this example is daily).
In short, I calculate simple moving average (SMA) and standard deviation of N days long stock prices. (Yes, I assume that the stock prices follow the Gaussian distribution.) The upper band is SMA + k*stdev, while the lower band is SMA - k*stdev.
I buy the stock when the stock price is above the upper band ('Too_High_Buy') or below the lower band ('Too_Low_Buy'). For the 'Too_High_Buy' case, I sell the stock when the stock price goes below the SMA. For the 'Too_Low_Buy' case, I sell the stock when the stock price goes above the SMA.

The parameters of my model is SMA and Stdev, while the hyper-parameters are N and k.

N: It decides how smooth SMA (the yellow line) will be.
k: It decides how far the upper and lower bands will be located from the SMA.

As different values of N and K show different characteristics, we should search which values of N and K are good for stock price data.

2) How to decide the hyper-parameters(N & k)

I use 'sliding steps' to decide the appropriate number for two hyper-parameters, N and K.
Sliding steps use the fixed amount of training data to decide the hyper parameter and check the performance of these hyper-parameters on the validation dataset, which immediately follows the training dataset.

I thought sliding steps is a good cross-validation tool to apply on stock data, because statistical properties of stocks can change while time goes by. For example, 30 years ago, McDonald and Coca-cola shows the similar price movements because they were sold together. However, nowadays, Coca-cola focuses on healthy drinks while McDonald stays as unhealthy food brands, they can show different price movements.

The hyper-parameter here can be several things, but for the sake of simplicity, let's say the hyper-parameters that we should decide is the duration of training dataset (N). The duration of dropped and forecasting is set to 1 day.

Using grid-search of different values of N and K, I calculate which values of N and K shows the best performance during the validation period in the training dataset.

3) My question

Can I use different k for different training sets? In other words, can I dynamically change which value of K to use based on the performance of sub-training dataset?

While performing the grid-search in the sliding step window method, we use the same value of K in all the training datasets to trade a stock during the validation period.

However, we can use different values of K based on the performance of sub-training data.

For example, let's say N is fixed to be 30 days. Then from the 1st Jan to 30th Jan, k=0.6 shows the best performance and we use this k=0.6 for the 31st Jan. Then from the 2nd Jan to 31st Jan, k=1.5 shows the best performance, then we use this K value for the 1st Feb, and so on.

Why should we use the shared hyper-parameter K all across the model? For parameters, it makes sense because it allows reduction of the parameters that the model has to learn. (source: Recurrent NNs: what's the point of parameter sharing? Doesn't padding do the trick anyway?)

But for using shared hyper-parameters, the amount of hyper-parameters is the same whether I use the shared hyper-parameters or not. It is only 1 hyper-parameter, which is K. The amount of computations needed is the same as well.
Answer: Yes - different hyper-parameters for can be use for different training sets.
In your specific use case, by training on different time-based sliding windows you are modeling drift your time-series data. The different hyperparameters values will capture the gradual changes over time.