Online wallet to redeem pre-fork paper wallet for both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash

Question: I have BTC (pre-fork) and now BCH(BCC) on a paper wallet. What's the best online wallet to transfer them into to ensure I retain both coins and also to be able to transact with them?
Answer: This is copied from  the Electrum website today:
Recommendation on how to redeem Bitcoin Cash
July 31st, 2017.
Electrum is a Bitcoin wallet created by Thomas Voegtlin in 2011.
Electrum is distributed by Electrum Technologies GmbH, a company
registered in Germany, using the website https://electrum.org
Electrum users who are not interested in Bitcoin Cash do not need to
worry nor to take any particular action. The following note is only
for users who want to access their Bitcoin Cash (BCC).
"Electron Cash" is a fork of Electrum for Bitcoin Cash. Electron Cash
is not endorsed by Electrum. It is open source, and binaries
(executables files) are available for Windows, OSX and
Android. However, when you run binaries instead of source code, you
have no guarantee that they match the source code. This is why wallet
binaries are usually signed by developers. A digital signature engages
the responsability of the person who signs.
The person who distributes the Electron Cash binaries has decided to
remain anonymous, and uses the fake name "Jonald Fyookball" in order
to sign Electron Cash binaries. Thus, if these binaries contain code
that is designed to steal your bitcoins, the author of the theft will
be anonymous and walk away safely with your funds.
This danger is exacerbated by the fact that the default behaviour of
Electron Cash is to silently copy all your Electrum wallets into its
own directory. Thus, if you run Electron Cash on a machine where you
previously used Electrum, all your pre-existing wallets will be
available in Electron Cash, and you will only need to enter your
password in order to expose your bitcoins to potential theft.
Therefore, users who want to run the Electron Cash binaries should do
it on a separate machine, that does not have their Bitcoin wallet. We
recommend to proceed as follows:

Install Electron Cash on a machine that does not have your
Electrum wallets.
Wait until the BCC hard fork has taken place, and a few BCC blocks
have been mined.
Move all your Electrum funds to a new Electrum wallet. This will
move only your BTC, and not your BCC, because the BCC blockchain has
replay protection. Wait until the transaction is confirmed.
Enter the seed of your (now empty) old wallet or private keys in
Electron Cash. Since the BTC have been moved to a new wallet,
entering your old seed in Electron Cash will not put your BTC funds
at risk.

Following these 4 easy steps you will be able to access your BCC
without compromising your BTC.
Comment: I would add "move your BCC to cold storage then wipe and restore the machine you used to run Electron Cash since you consider it possibly infected.


Order for Muslim of non-Islamic state... if he has joined the army of that nation

Question: if a Muslim brother belongs to non Islamic nation ....&  he has joined armed forces of that non islamic nation.....what did islam preach for him if he is fighting against  Muslim nation...  1) to be sincere with his own country because he took an oath for the protection of his mother land & Islam criticize very much for the implementation of oath....2) to be sincere with Muslims ..break his oath.. took resign from that armed forces so that he would not be responsible of Muslims  blood shed .. i was basically confused in the matter of oath already took by a Muslim brother from a side of non Islamic state & Is jihad from that side is eligible because that non Islamic country also contains the majority percentage of Muslim's as compare to the Muslim state..which of them is superior...plz give the answer in a light quran or hadis.....Jihad is purely for Allah Almighty  for the protection of Islam . Islam was also their in that side of the border .so in that matter i was little bit confused to be volunteer from that side of Muslim percentage is a sin or not
Comment: Defensive Jihad is for protection of Darul Islam, not for protection of Darul Harab in which Muslims might live.
Comment: You explicitly say "non islamic nation", which implies to me that they are not fighting for Islam, are not ruled by Muslims and not ruled in accordance to Islamic law. In that case numbers do not matter, it is Darul Harab when in war with an Islamic state. How can a non-Muslim war be Jihad?
Comment: in my question i was basically confused in the matter of oath already took by a Muslim brother from a side of non Islamic state & jihad from that side is eligible because that country also contains the majority percentage of Muslim's as compare to the Muslim state so that question cannot gives the proper satisfactory answer of my question
Comment: There is no such thing as 'Jihad' against a Muslim state. Jihad is war for the cause of Allah, not just any war in which Muslims participate.
Comment: yes sir i know Jihad is purely for Allah Almighty but for the protection of Muslims properties and families as i have mentioned now in  the question that this country also contains a majority Muslims percentage as compare to the Muslim state so in that matter i was little bit confused to be volunteer from that side of Muslim percentage is a sin or not
Comment: but Islam was also their on that side with much more percentage....
Comment: i got my answer sir thanks for your precious time ....
Answer: In such a situation the army the Muslim will probably be in will have a mix of non-Muslims with Muslims. And the non-Muslims will probably be more than the Muslims. Even if a Muslim country becomes an enemy to your country, you cannot get help from non-Muslims to aid you with the fight. You cannot fight along side non-Muslims thinking that their number will help you. In any fight you must only make allies with the Muslims or Allah only, this is in the Quran:
Or think ye that ye shall be abandoned, as though God did not know those among you who strive with might and main, and take none for friends and protectors except God, His Apostle, and the (community of) Believers? But God is well- acquainted with (all) that ye do. (9:16)
This is also evident in the opposite situation of what you describe i.e. when non-Muslims are in a Muslim country, and another country attacks this Muslim country, the non-Muslims are not permitted to fight. This is because Muslims must only get help from Allah and other Muslims in a fight.
This possibly hypothetical person you are talking about should not have joined a non-Muslim army, to start off with. If he has made an oath, possibly because he did not know, I would advise him to break it.
Answer: There is no obedience in disobedience to Allah  1,2 . Similar to how you can not make a promise to worship an idol, you can not make a promise to fight with disbelievers against the Muslims and hence destroy the lives and properties of Muslims.

لا يتخذ المؤمنون الكافرين أولياء من دون المؤمنين ومن يفعل ذلك فليس من الله في شيء إلا أن تتقوا منهم تقاة ويحذركم الله نفسه وإلى الله المصير
Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing with Allah, except when taking precaution against them in prudence. And Allah warns you of Himself, and to Allah is the [final] destination.
— Quran 3:28

يا أيها الذين آمنوا لا تتخذوا اليهود والنصارى أولياء بعضهم أولياء بعض ومن يتولهم منكم فإنه منهم إن الله لا يهدي القوم الظالمين
O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.
— Quran 5:51
Answer: I am giving another ansewer, as you have edited your question to say that there are a greater proportion of Muslims in this non-Muslim country compared to the Muslim country, in this situation you describe. But I am keeping the other ansewer as it describes a situation that would mostly likely occur. Like my previous ansewer, there cannot be any (absolutely none) non-Muslims in this army, only Muslims. And I will quote the verse again so you do not have to refer to different answers:
Or think ye that ye shall be abandoned, as though God did not know those among you who strive with might and main, and take none for friends and protectors except God, His Apostle, and the (community of) Believers? But God is well- acquainted with (all) that ye do. (9:16)
Okay say the army is completely Muslims and you ar reling only on Allah and Muslims for help in the fight even though your country is non-Muslim. Now there is a situation described in the Quran where the hands of the Muslims were restrained by Allah from attacking the non-Muslims on account of there being some Muslims being present amongst the non-Muslims. Allah restrained there hands so the Muslims would not fight their fellow brothers:
And He it is Who hath withheld men's hands from you, and hath withheld your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca, after He had made you victors over them. Allah is Seer of what ye do. (48:24) These it was who disbelieved and debarred you from the Inviolable Place of Worship, and debarred the offering from reaching its goal. And if it had not been for believing men and believing women, whom ye know not - lest ye should tread them under foot and thus incur guilt for them unknowingly; that Allah might bring into His mercy whom He will - If (the believers and the disbelievers) had been clearly separated We verily had punished those of them who disbelieved with painful punishment. (48:25) When those who disbelieve had set up in their hearts zealotry, the zealotry of the Age of Ignorance, then Allah sent down His peace of reassurance upon His messenger and upon the believers and imposed on them the word of self-restraint, for they were worthy of it and meet for it. And Allah is Aware of all things. (48:26)
So in this situation the Messenger (pbuh) was given the command of self-restraint.
I must add that, how a non-Muslim country has a greater proportion of Muslims than a Muslim country is confusing since Muslims cannot migrate to a non-Muslim country, except for a brief business trip or Jihad or Dawah. The majority of Muslims do not come to non-Muslim countries for these reasons. This is part of the problem, it is better if the Muslims go to the own countries. As for the hypothetical person you are talking about, he clearly is not in the non-muslim country for a brief business trip, or Jihad (he is fighting but this is not Jihad as it is not for islam) or Dawah, so he should go back to his Muslim country of origin or any Muslim country.
Comment: What about pak-india...India has a greatest proportion of Muslim population than Pakistan. but India is a non islamic state
Comment: You should read about why India was split into india-pak, and what was the reasons behind these Muslims tfor saying behind


Twitter crawlers for tweets, retweets and social network

Question: I am looking for some twitter crawlers for crawling the tweets/retweets and the social graph of some thousands of users. Suggestions are most welcome.
Answer: Have you looked at: http://datasift.com/ it is where I would start.
http://gnip.com/ would be another good option.
Comment: https://scraperwiki.com/ have just released a whole bunch of twitter stuff recently as well.
Answer: If you know a bit of Python language it is not too tricky to crawl using the Tweepy library. https://github.com/tweepy/tweepy .
It returns sets of tweets in json format.
That said it depends on the kind of data you want to use : realtime (stream listener), static, from one or several users, from lists, etc... Every way of crawling has its own limitations due to the Twitter API.
Answer: With www.followthehashtag.com twitter analytics service you will be able to get Twitter data for free up to 9 days back or track some thousand tweets or, in premium version since 2006, with no total tweets limits (only your budget)
You can find some million free tweets in "datasets" section.  For example, a NASDAQ100 big dataset here, all tweets, about 80 days using companies twitter $Symbol (Ticket with an $)
Hope this helps


Facebook Javascript SDK security issue?

Question: I am trying to embed facebook auth into my application.
My initial effort was to login in browser and obtain code. I pass this code back to my api and obtain access token (that stays with the server) and route all my requests to FB Api through my server. Seemed totally secure to me as my client has no information to be able to make authorized calls to FB as my app.
I however have been looking at FB Javascript SDK to avoid writing code for dialog opening and closing and noticed that it allows me to getLoginStatus and returns me the access token. Also, I went over FB auth flows in their documentation and they say that client-server hybrid flow is okay to do where server actually gives "Long lived access token" back to the client and advises me to use HTTPS (fair).
Now all this gets me thinking if this is a security concern. Can't I as a potential hacker inject some javascript into the user's webpage that could either a) make a getLoginStatus and get the access token or b) just get the access token by making a request to my api server and get the access token and then use that to post (assuming that user authorized my app to do so) to facebook as if my app was doing it?
I am a security newbie and maybe overlooking a bunch of stuff here but could someone help me understand what I'm missing?
Thanks in advance!
PS: I do know I can enable further security to ensure that I need the app secret every time I want to make a request which the client can't do as that information will never be available on client side.
Answer: I think the key here is that the access token returned client side is very short lived (10min). In that sense, I think session hijacking could be possible but then gives limited risk, similar to the normal session risk mitigation procedures for many auth systems.

Facebook Javascript SDK security issue?


Squid equivalent for Windows?

Question: We are planning to move some of our Linux services to a Windows platform.  What is the equivalent solution on the Microsoft platform to setup a web cache for outgoing traffic?
Answer: Squid doesn't care what type of system is initiating web traffic, so you can just continue to use Squid, although there is a Windows port if you want to run Squid on Windows for some reason (http://squid.acmeconsulting.it/SquidNT26.html).
If you are looking to become a Microsoft shop, then Internet Security and Acceleration Server (more commonly known as ISA Server) will do the trick (http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/edgesecurity/isaserver/en/us/default.aspx)
Comment: Squid + SoftPerfect Badnwidth manager for port forwarding to create a transparent proxy is detailed at: http://markus.revti.com/2009/01/squid-transparent-proxy-server-on-windows-server-2003/
Answer: FreeProxy
If you want a working proxy for Windows out of the box: FreeProxy is very easy to install and configure. You only need to configure the service to get it up and running.
The basic features include proxying HTTP, SMTP, POP, FTP Proxy, TCP Tunneling, and SOCKS 4/4a/5. It works well with a wide range of programs. Besides browsers, it supports ICQ, MSN messenger etc. There is a comprehensive help which illustrates the setup of these clients.
In addition, FreeProxy can be authenticated to a internal user database or using a Windows domain. There is extensive reporting,  control of resource permissions, URL filtering, IP address filtering, local port binding, demand dialing, calendar control, proxy chaining. It also includes a fully working Web server. It runs as a service on all Windows versions (server and desktop.)
FreeProxy is a free, but professional tool and qualified for volume usage. The newest version also includes SMTP and POP server functionality.
Comment: This thing doesn't look to be supported anymore, if you check the last news, it was in 2007 and their forums are full bot spamming... This is not getting my confidence...
Comment: But it still works (version 3.x). Even on Windows Server 2008. And you can do nice things.
Comment: Is it still working?
Answer: I've always used Squid for Windows. It's maintained seperately, and is avaliable here:
http://squid.acmeconsulting.it/SquidNT26.html
Answer: Sun's Sun Proxy server is free.  Its pretty bulky, but it does AD intergration.  Never used it beyond playing with it since we don't need a proxy, but that might be an option for you.
Answer: Squid will run nicely on Windows.  We have been using it for over a year now as a web cache and web filter using free blacklists.
Be sure to run it as a service and to hide the output.  (I am at home and dont have my notes with me, but will post some helpful hints here when I return to my office)

Squid equivalent for Windows?


Are there gods unworthy of worship?

Question: I've read here that one version of the Shahada (شهادة) is

There is no god worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is his messenger

Does this imply that there are, or may be, gods unworthy of worship?
Comment: Great question. I assume it means"  There is only Allah, you ought not to worship those things who you assume them as God (or unreal supposed gods of you). Good luck.
Answer: Two quick points in answer to your question:

The entire phrase "god worthy of worship" is an awkward translation of the single Arabic word "ilah." That's because there isn't an easy English cognate. Suppose you had a statement: "There is no car in the parking lot" but instead of it being framed that way it said instead "There is no 4-wheeled vehicle capable of automotion in the parking lot." In the first case, the question of whether there are other kinds of vehicles never arises because of the structure of the statement. Similarly in this case, it's just an artifact of translation that raises the question of there being other gods.
A god/deity is by definition worthy of worship. It is not possible to extricate the two. If that weren't the case, that god is seriously deficient in their abilities, which brings into question their being a god in the first place. In Islam, the point is that there is (and can only be) one such being and that we should direct our worship to him alone.
Answer: No it doesn't! Islam is monotheistic and believes in only one supreme all-encompassing God. The Shahada, especially when read in original Arabic clearly does never say that there are other gods apart from Allah albeit unworthy of worship.
However the wisdom behind translating it as the above is intended to highlight the full implications of Shahada which is negation of not just all false deities but also mislead/delusional life purposes. That is, Shahada is not only meant to negate all inconsistent, adulterated, misidentified or downright mythical/blasphemous concepts of God, but on the more ethical/practical level, it is also intended to condemn human preoccupations with this-worldly ends (e.g. wealth, status, carnal desires etc) as when they are wrongly treated as the ultimate purpose of life pursued with the kind of passion shown towards objects of worship, while it is only the real supreme God that is worthy of unconditional devotion and ultimate pursuit.
Comment: Subhanallah... loved this answer!
Answer: This definitely does not imply that there are other gods, however there are people who believe in different gods and
<code>There is no god worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is his messenger
</code>
is for them. Allah is the one and only creator and true God. If you want I can reference many Ahadith and verses from The Holy Quran that confirm the Unity of Allah and that Allah is the only God and Creator of everything.
Answer: Back in the time of Prophet Muhammad Sallalaho Alaihiwasallum, there are people who used to worship multiple gods, including Sun, Moon and other clay sculptures. This version of Shahadah is for those people who think that there are multiple gods exist, to let them realize that ALLAH is the only GOD that is really worthy of worship.

Are there gods unworthy of worship?


How do I use this valve properly?

Question: I have a valve in my heating system that I don't understand. I have searched on the internet but I haven't been able to find any information on it. What I do know is that the valve's purpose is that of maintaining the pressure in the system, but I don't know why there are two controls or what each of the two controls do. All other pressure control vales that I've seen have just a single control.
The two controls are marked in the photo. There is a hand operated valve ( similar to a tap ) on the bottom and there is a screwdriver operated control on the top with a + and - on it, but turning it doesn't seem to do much if anything and it doesn't appear to have any stop it just seems to keep turning but I have only gone 10 or 15 turns before I turned it back, maybe it's more.
Answer: It's called a pressure reducing valve (PRV)
That's a PRV with a shut off and set point. The knob on the bottom is the shut off and the bigger knob with the screw is the set point. Now that you've adjusted it with pressure in the system you may have lowered it and you may need to remove some water to determine the set point. From the picture it looks like you're set at about 2 bar which is about 30 PSI in my neck of the woods 30 PSI on heating system is the upper limit and close to it or much beyond it will cause the pressure relief valve to pop.
What the pressure does
I'm not going to do the exact math but one BAR will push water up about 10 meters. So if the highest radiator in your house is around ten meters high from the point of measurement you would want your pressure-reducing valve set to maybe 1.2 BAR to compensate for errors.
What to do
If the only thing you did was turn the bottom one then no harm done. If you did adjust the top one you're going to need to remove some water but before you do that you're going to need to determine what the correct pressure for your system is. Often on that type of pressure reducing valve the screw on the top is what actually makes the adjustment and the black plastic is just a cap covering the housing therefore turning it has no effect.
In conclusion
It seems like you have not done anything to negatively impact the system but the fact still remains that if it is indeed a heating system the pressure may be set too high (depending on local codes and regulations). If it's a PRV for your domestic system (tap water) then 2 BAR is most likely close to the correct number (also depending on local codes and regulations).
Comment: Thanks - all that makes sense but can you tell me what the purpose of the "shut off" valve at the bottom is ( haven't seen one on other PRV's ) - and should it be open or closed after I've done setting the top screw / removing water etc
Comment: It's literally to just shut it off. If you want drain the system you need to shut the water off. PRVs that don't include it need one upstream to isolate the system. Also if you don't have a backflow preventer the valve should be shut off.
Comment: Thanks - I'm a bit confused though about the backflow preventer part. I would have thought that if there was a pressure drop for whatever reason in the heating system the purpose of the PRV was to automatically top the system up ..  but If the flow is shut of ( to prevent mixing with potable water I presume?) then unless the pvr is somehow able to bypass the shut off then it's effectively redundant ... and if there's any pressure loss then it will stay at the lower level ... making me wonder what the point of the pvr is ... sorry if I'm making it complicated and thanks for your help

How do I use this valve properly?


Sanitizing oak chips

Question: Going to try using dry oak chips in my secondary fermenter.  How do you recommend sanitizing the chips before adding them?
Answer: We soak ours in bourbon.  Kicks the oak up a notch or two.
Comment: i would think soaking things in bourbon is really the answer to anything... :P
Comment: This is the way I always assumed was easiest.
Comment: Or Scotch!  I've used oak chips twice. Once with bourbon, the other an Islay Scotch. But in both cases, the aim was to produce the aged-whisk(e)y barrel flavour.
Answer: Likely late in the game now, but you can also put oak chips on a sanitized cooking sheet at 200F or so and leave in the oven for 15 minutes or so.  This will sanitize the chips, and subtly brings out some of the flavour, but not too much tannic or other astringent flavours. Essentially you are pasteurizing the oak chips by heating them to 138F (min), before adding them to your wort or must. I usually use the method for my homemade wine, but see no reason why it would not also work for homemade beer.
Comment: Absolutely!  This is the cheapest and easiest solution that won't extract tannins or require additional alcohol that could impart more flavor than you want.  Plus it will impart a unique, celestial aroma to your kitchen!
Comment: I would put them in at 225F for about 10 minutes. This will sterilize (a step beyond sanitizing them ) From Wikipedia: "The standard setting for a hot air oven is at least two hours at 160 °C. A rapid method heats air to 190 °C for 6 minutes for unwrapped objects and 12 minutes for wrapped objects.[15][16] Dry heat has the advantage that it can be used on powders and other heat-stable items that are adversely affected by steam (e.g. it does not cause rusting of steel objects)."
Answer: Boiling the oak chips can bring out undesirable tannins.  Soak them in alcohol, or trust that there is enough alcohol in your beer to kill an infection.  Many people do not sanitize flavorings added to the secondary.
Comment: Didn't know about the tannins issue from boiling. Good to know!
Comment: Might be worth trying if I do it again. I thought the resulting beer had too much tannin if drinking it by the pint...
Answer: I've soaked them in scotch, and I've boiled them for up to 20 minutes.  No harsh flavors. I pour all of the extracted woody liquid in too. I recommend using french oak unless you intend to age for a long time.
Answer: If you want to avoid adding the alcohol flavorings from bourbon or whiskey, I would jsut steam them for 10 minutes.  Get a good rolling boil going with a steamer in the pot, toss in the chips and once the steam refills the pot I'd take them off the heat.
The hot steam with still sanitize, while the slow reduction in heat will help minimize the tannin issues that can come with outright boiling the chips for too long.
EDIT 1/19/10
Rethinking it now, soaking in vodka, then adding the chips only would be a pretty neutral way to add oak without too much contribution from the sanitizing liquor (like bourbon etc).
Answer: When I used oak chips in my scotch ale, I boiled them for a minute or so and then dropped them in.
You can also soak them in scotch, which would sanitize them and add some pretty awesome flavoring. I think I'll do that next time, actually.
Answer: I immerse it in two cups of boiling water for 15 minutes, then toss it in the secondary. I always add the water as well with good results. I also keep a 1.75 LT bottle of Jim Beam half full with bourbon and the rest with Med toast French oak chips so they are always soaking up that great flavor to add to Bourbon stouts. The chips pick up a lot of the great bourbon flavor and stay sanatized due to the high alcohol. Both ways have worked well for me depending on what kind of flavor you are looking for.
Answer: I like a heavier toast than the french oak chips my local brew store sells, so I soak them in Chardonnay (for IPAs) for a couple of weeks and then toast them dry in the oven (10-15 minutes at 350º or so).  The Chardonnay might not have enough alcohol to fully sanitize them, but it adds a great subtle flavor to oak-aged IPAs.  350º is hotter than a wort boil, and it seems to do the trick.  I've not had any probs, but my beers are all pretty high-octane so the alcohol that's present in secondary helps keep things clean.
Make sure to watch them closely in the oven though-- you don't want them to get too toasted and it's probably also some kind of fire hazard :)  -- Makes your house smell really good though.
Answer: I've got 4 oz of oak chips soaking in 4 floz of Jack Daniels right now for a porter I'm brewing on Christmas day.  If that doesn't kill all the bugs in the wood, I can't imagine anything will.
Answer: I toasted a 500 Gram bag of light English Oak chips in the oven (on a sanitised and bubbling hot baking tray covered in baking parchment) for 1 hour at 175 degrees Celsius whilst I baked a cake and a tray of oven fries on the lower shelves. Once done, whilst still warm, I added 100 Gram of this (now a deeper brown-tan colour) into a small sanitised jar with 200ML Scotch Whisky and 100 Gram of light brown sugar (bottle priming). I topped with boiling hot still water, sealed the lid, shook them vigoursly for a minute and put in a cool, dark cupboard for 3 days. When I was ready for bottling my 23 Litres of golden-Yorkshire IPA, I sieved the chips off, let the liquid into the bottom of the bottling bucket and then carefully siphoned in the brew. 4 weeks later, I popped open a bottle for testing... Delicious. I now have a firm and fixed method ongoing. Whilst doing this oven work, I have to say, my whole house smelt deliciously Christmassy lol.

Sanitizing oak chips


How do the "Upcoming events" links work?

Question: On the Beta page, when I click on any of the links about upcoming events, I only come to a chat page where there's no mention of those events. Is there any information about the events available and how can I access it?
Answer: Yeah that part is sadly a bit of a mess. The idea is that we schedule certain types of events that might be interesting to members of our community, with our main chat room serving as discussion and announcement platform, and the Community Bulletin that you're referring to as one way of announcing our activities to the rest of the community. Consider them also as an invitation, anyone is welcome to participate and the events are announced also via our @StackSpaceExp Twitter account. You can also register to our chat room events if you so wish, to also receive a reminder roughly 3 hours ahead of some event via your email (and in your Stack Exchange inbox).
Events we schedule are mostly publicly available live broadcasts (webcasts, podcasts,...), teleconferences and similar of events relevant to space exploration (rocket launches, televised extravehicular activities, conferences, media calls, presentations, workshops, lectures, and so on). Sadly, from what I've heard, chat isn't a priority for Stack Exchange developers, so the tools we have available to us don't really cut it for Space Exploration (I didn't notice other Stack Exchange communities scheduling so many one-off events like we do). So we make due, and one of our chat regulars (usually me) would post links to where the event can be accessed from, usually a few minutes before they start. For example, for a rocket launch, that would mostly be 20 to 30 minutes before the start of the launch window, for those launches that are actually televised. But we do schedule events with that in mind - the start of our event would match the time its broadcast begins.
Now, I've been thinking before to start a new Meta thread with additional information on each individual scheduled event, but even gathering information on them is a rather time consuming process, let alone announcing them at three places (now it's currently two places, one is our chat schedule, another is our Community Bulletin list, and I'm not even counting the announcement with additional links prior to the event). So I have yet to think of a format that would be both informative and not too laborious, something a lot simpler than what I started with - each scheduled event in its own Meta thread, like you can see a few under the scheduled-event. Writing all that is simply too much for more or less a single person doing it.
But we could use some simple list with additional links, because both ways to schedule events that moderators and chat room owners have available to us can only manage a single link. So that's why that single link would point to our chat room - it's where we share more of them, along with any other information required, plus we would often discuss these events live, which then often results in new questions or improved answers in our main Q&A. Plus, everyone can learn a new space exploration related thing or two and be up to date with latest developments.

Addendum: So far, we have scheduled 259 events. That's a lot for a beta site that's merely a year old. Nearly every day (OK, let's settle for every other day) there's some space exploration event to watch, listen to, or participate in. I don't think that's the level of activity that Stack Exchange developers anticipated for community events, so we're kinda charting a new territory here. Tools to better handle this will eventually follow (I hope).
For the time being, I have a whole folder of web links that I monitor for new event announcements and sift through on a weekly basis. And if you noticed some other publicly available event (in English) that might interest our community that we haven't yet scheduled (note that we only schedule launches a few days in advance, since their actual dates are rather tentative), please notify us in our chat and someone will add it to our schedule.
Comment: Thanks. It is anyway helpful as it is already, one can often find the event from its title and date. i was thinking I was misunderstanding something.


Can Mail on OS X Lion be set to keep only the latest conversations?

Question: I would like to start using my Gmail account with Mail on Mac OS X Lion but I do not want it to download all of my Inbox as that would use unnecessary space. Can Mail be set to store only the latest messages as it does on the iPhone?
Answer: I don't think it can keep only the latest conversations, however, you can set the iPhone to permanently remove deleted messages through Settings -> Mail -> Account -> Advanced and set delete after to like a day or so


Why is it considered rude to say 'thanks in advance'?

Question: A high-rep member told the OP of this question that saying 'thanks in advance' is rude. Why is this so?
Comment: It's not rude, merely extraneous. Ignore Greg.
Comment: Simply because hardly anyone I come across saying thanks is actually thankful.
Comment: @Chris: I'm not sure what to make of this. "Thanks in Advance" is not rude on any planet I've ever visited. If anything, it is a gesture of consideration. What *is* rude is the amount of everyone's time this innocuous bit of trivia has consumed.
Comment: Sorry, @Greg, your dogma doesn't seem to be finding too many supporters. Me personally I'm offended by the acronym "IANAL" because it has the word "anal" in it, but I don't go telling others they're wrong for using it.
Comment: If you thank someone inadvance for something they have not agreed to do it is considered rude as you are pressuring them unduly to acquiesce or be put in a bad position to refuse you.
Comment: Imagine if your boss said "I need you to come in Saturday, thanks in advance", then walked away. How would you like it?
Comment: Also, would you prefer he say, "screw you in advance"? Sounds to me like you'll be working Saturday either way :)
Comment: It's a waste of bits.  We prefer the tla tia.  Too many ones being thrown away uselessly.  We don't care about the zeros, of course, but we want to save ones if possible.
Comment: possible duplicate of [Should 'Hi', 'thanks' and taglines and salutations be removed from posts?](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/should-hi-thanks-and-taglines-and-salutations-be-removed-from-posts)
Comment: @Robert Harvey: indeed so. I don't think I'd care so much if it didn't keep cropping up and taking attention away from people's questions.
Comment: @Chris: Well, it's already covered adequately [here](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/should-hi-thanks-and-taglines-and-salutations-be-removed-from-posts) anyway.
Comment: See also: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/49218/can-thanks-in-advance-be-considered-rude
Answer: I've seen this same user complaining about this before, and started an argument with 3 other users about it. I flagged the post and all the comments were deleted. (By the way, 1000 Rep is not really considered "high-rep"). Ignore him and the comment.
"Thanks in advance" is not rude in my book. I'm from the U.S. if that means anything.
Pointless? Definitely.
Rude? That's quite a stretch.
If you want to, edit it out and flag the user's comment as unconstructive/obsolete, and otherwise ignore this type of comment. It's certainly not helping anything, and if the user really is offended by it, he is more than welcome to suggest an edit instead of complaining in the comments and wasting our time on meta, which IMO is rude.
Comment: He can Go Thank Himself.
Comment: The proper response to "Thanks in advance" is "You're preemptively welcome, supposing you'll still be grateful at this point." (From [alt.usage.English, Feb 2011](http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_thread/thread/0ae0e503adc1e979))
Comment: Only an absolutely pedantic snob would consider "Thanks in advance" as rude. Besides, rather than being rude^H^H^H^H *a charming fellow*, he could have just edited the posts.
Comment: [He appears to think everything is rude](http://stackoverflow.com/users/17614/greg?tab=activity).
Comment: I flagged one of the posts, looks like a mod zapped all the "Thanks in advance is considered rude" comments (it was close to 30% of the user's total comments).
Comment: [Looks like he's getting the hint](http://stackoverflow.com/posts/6698785/revisions). (See revision 3)
Comment: @sixlettervariables Would you be an absolutely pedantic snob if you considered "You are welcome in advance" rude? It's the same logic.
Comment: @sixlettervariables: Look up "pedantic". I don't think it means what you think it means.
Comment: To the Right Honorable @LightnessRacesinOrbit, Inconceivable! Perhaps hyperbole is not quite as portable as once thought. Though if not pedantic, he surely passed it along before he *went into plaid*. Kind regards,
Comment: I just used the rest of my flags on all his pointless comments. :/
Comment: Nope, he's back at it again...
Comment: @sixlettervariables: Cheers & hth.
Comment: [He's gone back to doing it as recently as within the last month](http://stackoverflow.com/posts/6702439/revisions). Sigh.
Answer: In a linguistic sense, I think some people can interpret "Thanks in advance" as rude because it may indicate that you're not interested in sticking around for an answer - you're just going to come back and pick up whatever is left when you return. So I've heard, at least. On the linguistic scale, there's a better site to ask if you want to know how "Thanks in advance" can be interpreted as rude in this language.
In a site policy sense, we don't like "Thanks in advance" and similar not because it's rude, but because it's against our signature-and-salutations policy. You can read up on the basics in this question thread. In summary, it's basically a noise that's inbetween greetings (which take up space and delay the onset of reading the question) and signatures (which take up space and are extraneous), in that it takes up space as noise that doesn't contribute towards the actual question you're asking.
Comment: @Madmartigan It is there now http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/49218/can-thanks-in-advance-be-considered-rude
Comment: @Wesley Note the closing point of the accepted answer. ♪ And yes, I do think it would be effective to ask on the site.
Comment: Here's a bit of irony: Check out the closing line of the [closest match I found on english.stackexchange](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6230/ending-a-note-with-thanks-regardless) (Not the right question, but somewhat close). I think OP should actually ask this on english.
Comment: There's also [linguistics.stackexchange.com](http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/)
Comment: @Pacerier: [Been there, done it, got the T-shirt](http://meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/1367/).
Comment: @FumbleFingers, What's "got the T-shirt" supposed to mean anyway?
Comment: @Pacerier: It's [just an expression](http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Been+there%2c+done+that+got+the+T-shirt). What I *meant* to convey was I've been involved in discussions about the subject of the current question on more than one SE site. I carelessly assumed your comment was in reply to Aillyn's, but I see now you were probably responding to Wesley. I *am* on linguistics.SE from time to time, but I don't recall this subject coming up there (they're above such things, I think! :)
Comment: [The question has already been asked on the site](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/49218/can-thanks-in-advance-be-considered-rude).
Answer: To me, "thanks in advance" implies an expectation of assistance. While not rude per se, it is somewhat offputting to see that expectation put out there. The thanking can wait until some assistance has been offered, and on this site an upvote or an accepted answer counts as a "thanks".
Comment: Then how about "Thanks in advance if any"?
Comment: @Pacerier the SE policy is simply not to thank people. This is a Q&A site, not a chit-chat site (paraphrasing Stack Overflow's tour). Much of the time, question askers who comment with "thanks" don't bother to accept or upvote the answer. Those adding it to questions might not realize people have spent days of their life editing it out of these posts. "Thanks" in any form isn't useful.
Answer: I don't think that it is. But there are some issues with its use.
I'll list the ones that bother me:

People keep writing "thanks in advanced" instead, and that really irritates me. I'm sorry, but I can't help it: just knowing that you think there's a "d" on the end makes me angry.
As others have indicated, "thanks in advance" implies expectation of aid. To be fair, it's a realistic expectation given the nature of this site. I can see why someone would think it "rude", though I think that's a bit of a stretch. Really, though, "please" is far more appropriate; "thanks in advance" just seems a bit obnoxious.
This is already well-covered elsewhere, but "thanks" in general can seem a bit slimey. You're not actually demonstrating gratitude in any meaningful way. Did it put you out when you wrote "thank you"? Did it cost you anything to write that? You're pretending that you're being polite and grateful, but actually all you did was type a few characters. That's a little insulting. Instead of writing "thanks", just contribute to the community by voting, answering and commenting. That's how you can actually demonstrate gratitude... not by writing a few characters and pretending that it means something: no matter your kind intent.
Comment: The last point really makes no sense. Typing "thanks" doesn't prohibit the user from contributing in all possible ways to this community, unless it's an hour-long exhausting activity. He can very well just do both. I don't get how if I want to express my gratitude to somebody I am being "insulting" and "pretensive". That's ridiculous and *actually insulting*.
Comment: @XiangJi: I don't know what I can say now that I didn't say in the answer. If you disagree with it, or didn't grok it, I can't change that. "Thanks" is noise. A waste of space. Repetitive. Tedious. Pointless. Non-constructive. _And it has no upside._ Then, going further, asserting that it _does_ have some moral upside is in fact not true. It's a completely empty symbol. You saying "thanks" to me gives me nothing, and if you think you're being really nice and kind by doing so then you're wrong and almost insulting me thinking that's all I need in life. That's what I'm saying.
Comment: All the claims you have made about "thanks" being worthless or negative apply equally well to saying "thanks" in real life, so either you don't ever say "thanks" to people IRL, or there's a problem in your reasoning somewhere.
Comment: @j_random_hacker The question is specifically about "thanks in advance", not thanks more generally. No, I don't say "thanks in advance" IRL.
Answer: Saying "thanks" is a way of indicating that you have received something of value (or at least something you perceive to be of value).  Thanking someone for a correct or insightful answer, for example, is certainly appropriate.
Where saying "thanks in advance" is problematic (in my opinion) is that it divorces the display of gratitude from the receipt of useful information.  In other words, you're thanking unspecified people for things that they have not provided to you yet.
As noted already, it's certainly a pointless thing to say, but I suspect that it could also be interpreted as an indication that the poster does not value your time personally and is merely "going through the motions" in the hopes that it will land him an extra answer or two.
However, given the massive proliferation of language/cultural barriers and "newbie" developers (and the relative scarcity of genuine sociopaths, at least among software developers as far as I'm aware), I would tend to err on the side of, "The poster means well but is uninformed".
Answer: In advance means "ahead in time." Thanks in advance means you are thanking people who answer before you get any answer. It doesn't seem to be rude, and it doesn't seem to imply that you are not going to read the answers given for your questions.
That said, normally on SE sites it's preferred if the question just contains the question being asked, and not phrases similar to "any help is appreciated," or "thank you for reading me."
Such phrases, even if they are an extra, are surely less noisy of any phrases added before the question itself, such as "Hello guys," or "Hello Drupalers," or "Ave, conncetioniorum virtualorum habitantes!" That is probably the reason why the greetings in a question have been removed before the thanks, which (as far as I know) are not yet automatically removed.
Comment: Also, greetings cut into the question excerpts when they're shown in lists while extraneous fluff at the end of the question does not.
Comment: @Robert: FYI, that was [here](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/should-hi-thanks-and-taglines-and-salutations-be-removed-from-posts/93989#93989). Though I still don't quite understand that logic. `s/\n?Thank(s| you)\.?$//i` seems pretty simple to me.
Comment: It turns out that "thanks" is more difficult to remove than greetings (I remember Jeff talking about it somewhere), without causing unintented side effects.
Comment: @BradMace Yes, extraneous fluff added after the question is less "noisy," even if putting the same sentences at the end of every question should still be avoided, IMO.
Answer: To understand why it's considered rude, picture this:
It's Christmas.  The family is gathered around the tree, and you're all about to open presents.  You stand up and say,
"Thanks in advance for any presents!"
Comment: @NicolBolas, among other things, saying "Thanks in advance" indicates that you're getting the gratitude part out of the way ahead of time because you can't be bothered with it later.  And it's presumptuous.
Comment: @Kyralessa, Actually I don't see how this is a good explanation. It doesn't differ much from saying "Thanks in advance" after posting a question.
Comment: Somebody downvoted this answer.  I guess in some families they actually do this!  No offense was meant.  :D
Comment: I didn't downvote this, but in my opinion, the inference in this statement is that you should be thankful only for presents that meet some criteria of yours. That you shouldn't show reasonable gratitude for people who actually gave you something, even if it wasn't necessarily what you wanted. The problem with "thanks in advance" is that you haven't done anything to be worthy of it. In your example, you've already been given presents; you simply don't know what they are yet.
Answer: I see items like 'thanks in advance' as being rude because they are not needed and just take time.  They remind me of how salespeople sometimes try to control my actions!
Comment: I'd think you are thinking too much into it..........


Document Migration in a Single Farm from site collection to site collection

Question: We currently have a single SharePoint 2010 farm with multiple site collections. We have Team sites and then the main portal site.  The plan is to extend our web application into a new Zone for the Team sites.
The scenario is:
Teams within their team site will be able to create, approve and then publish their own documents or document sets after they have been approved. Once approved, I would like to provide them the option to publish them to the Portal site.  One document (or document set) library, from one Site collection (team sites) to another document (or document set) library to another Site collection (Portal Site).  We would like to maintain the metadata and content types.
I would like to write a reusable function that would run when a document was approved to facilitate this migration or export feature.  I would consider writing a service that would allow me to have scheduled jobs.
MY Question:
Can this be done? (Logically I say yes, but haven't found anywhere that anyone is doing this)
What are the pros, cons?
Which is the best solution SPExport or Content Organizer and why?
Does anyone know of any good documented resources to ad in writing my use case requirements.
I would like to be as flexible as possible to allow for other types of content migration in the future.
Answer: Okay I figured it out for any others that would like to know.  Sharepoint 2010 has this feature called the Content Organizer.  It work with the files metadate to route it to the approprate file from on Site Collection to another Site Collection.  Both Site Collections have to be set up one to send and one to recieve.  I will share with you a few of sites that I have collected my finding from.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee558288.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg650433.aspx#RoutingRecordtoDocumentLibrarySubfolder_Conclusion
http://blog.concurrency.com/sharepoint/sharepoint-2010-content-organizer/
Thanks to these great authors of these websites, that I look great infront of my bosses when I presented this cool feature that has had them pondering for awhile.  :)
the Code Diva!
Answer: I've not tried this specific scenario, so I'm not sure if having the Web App across different zones would complicate anything, but I would have thought the simplest option would be to use the "send to" feature available on the team site document libraries or site (or even at the farm level) to allow users to publish documents to a document centre with the content organiser enabled on the portal site.
If you needed more control of the approval process and wanted to automate the solution more, there is a Send Document Set to Repository workflow task available to use in a custom workflow which could be activated on the team sites...?
Comment: Thank you for your response. And yes I to believe that the "send to" on the Team site would be a simple solution for those who felt comfortable using SharePoint. However my company has a vast array of users starting with those that are not even comfortable using email. So as we introduce this new document application solution with all of it's additional features that you and I understand, I also have to make it as simple and automatic as possible for those who don't. Also depending on the mediadata and the users role, the Sendto could be different each time, and I don't want to have to rely on


What's the best quality paper to print night photos?

Question: I am shooting numerous different types of long exposures of cityscapes. I want to know what is the best type of paper to print onto? I want to get the deepest blacks.
Comment: Can you define "best" a bit more specifically? Deepest blacks? Most fade resistant?  Easiest size to find a frame for? etc.
Comment: The deepest blacks
Answer:
The deepest blacks

The deepest and richest colors, in my experience, come from super glossy papers. So, if you're in the darkroom, go for something like Fuji's RC Glossy crystal archive paper.
If printing at a lab, like mpix, do as @null says and go for the metallic paper.
If printing at home, I'm a super fan of Hahnemühle's Photo Gloss Baryta 320 paper. They also have an RC glossy that might work for your need, but I've no experience with it.
Answer:
The deepest blacks

I found that night cityscape images are usually high contrast scenes and that metallic paper adds a lot to the highlights.
This can make the blacks/darks appear relatively deeper.
Answer: Metallic paper works well if the print will be illuminated properly to allow the illuminating light to bounce off the substrate and back through the ink absorbing layer to give it that "illuminated" from behind" look.
If the print is going to be hung without a decent source of direct lighting in a subdued lighting environment, it can look worse than regular glossy paper.


When umrah season will start/open after hajj 2017?

Question: I want to know from when can people start going for Umrah this year?
Comment: It is permissible to do 'umrah on all days of the year. https://islamqa.info/en/109313
Comment: @ButarekHd so that means umrah could have been done the very next day of hajj?
Answer: 'Umrah/'Omrah العمرة has no special time in the year you can do it whenever you want to.
You even can perform or combine hajj and 'Omrah at the same time, however the period of hajj is limited and fixed by the qur'an (Why Quran use 'Months' for period of Hajj?)... of course if a person wants to perform 'Omrah during the period of hajj it is highly recommended to combine both unless one had a reason for not doing so.
The 'Omrah basically, after an intention and wearing the ihram, consists of twaaf and sa'y which can be performed in a short time compared to the tasks of hajj, one might accomplish this in much less than half a day.
Also read the fatwa from islamqa #109313
Answer: The very simple question has been complicatedly answered here, after Ramadan every year the Saudi government stop issuing Umra Visas until completion of the Hajj. And even after Hajj for reasons of a thorough clean-up and Hujjaj to return back to their respective homelands NO UMRA VISAS are issued until start of Safar. So technically the Umra season starts at the begining of Safar and Ends at the End of Ramazan, by season i mean the ministry process of accepting applications and issuing of Umra Visas. And if you are locally present there requiring no visa for travel, you can perform Umra on any of the days except the Ayyam Ul-Hajj that starts in Dhulhijjah month and although Hajj is over in 5 days, Umra is not performed in the entire month of Dhulhijjah.


How mosquitoes get their food and survive?

Question: How do mosquitoes find and get their food? For how much time can they survive without food?
Answer: Only female mosquitos (of some, but not all species) need blood to reproduce, they find it by following cues that lead them to warm blooded animals. These include gradients of heat and CO₂. Pretty much all mosquitos feed on nectar and plants while they are adults...
As for how long they could survive without food, I don't know, but no longer than their normal lifespans of a few days to a couple of months as adult.
Comment: This answer would be greatly improved by linking to some study on the matter
Comment: @nico yeah, but during a cursory search I couldn't find any addressing the question at hand, how frequently must a mosquito feed (for any species), and I suspect it is because the question is kind of moot... most people don't care about how often a mosquito must eat its adult food... much less important to a mammal than: just when do they bite us?
Comment: blood seeking mosquitoes are attracted to CO2, lactic acid, and the bacteria that live in sweat (old sweat), physically active human emit all three.
Answer: Both Male and Female Mosquitoes feeds nectar and plant juice.
Only Female Mosquitoes feeds blood from Vertebrates. They find Lipid, protein from blood.
Lipid and Protein will help in nourishing egg nutrients. Their breeding proportionately increases with the amount of blood meal they intake.
I am not sure about their life expectancy without food.


Jewish diaspora in the late antiquity

Question: Is it possible to estimate the distribution of Jews in the variety of cities they settled in the aftermath of expulsion from Palestine by Adrian in 135 AD and in the following few centuries of the late antiquity? In particular, are there any source on what were the numbers of Jewish communities in Alexandria, Carthage, Rome, and other large cities of the Empire? I would like to learn how the numbers in these communities changed between 2nd and 5th centuries AD, including their percentage within population, were there any large scale migrations not immediately after 135 AD, etc.
Comment: Best source would tax records if Jews were taxed differently, or B/M/D records if the Rabbis kept this information back then.
Comment: Interesting question; upvoted because I like the emphasis on method over answer.  The question would be improved by inserting some citations to kickstart the research and allow others to learn more about the diaspora.
Comment: This is a great question and @LateralFractal's suggestion is good - but it's not likely that tax records have survived, except for Egypt, perhaps.
Answer: Here's a partial answer covering just Alexandria (though also see comment about Carthage below).
The most significant event in the history of the Hellenistic Jewish community of Alexandria was not the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135CE, but the suppression of the Rebellion of the Exile (Kitos War) in 117CE. Theodor Mommsen estimates that in the first century CE, there were approximately 200,000 Jews in Alexandria out of a total population of 500,000; this estimate is likely to be from Philo, who also claimed two of the five city districts were majority Jewish.
Following anti-Jewish riots in 38CE, the Jewish community was concentrated into one of the five districts. The suppression of the Rebellion of the Exile in 117CE resulted in the near extinction of the community in Alexandria. The fate of the surviving Jews is unknown: some may have converted to Christianity or Gnosticism.
The Jewish community reappears in the 4th century in a more Hebraized form (reflecting a strong Palestinian influence). In 415CE the community is expelled by St. Cyril though it appears again soon after (the expulsion may have been partly symbolic, affecting community leaders more than others). When the Arabs arrived in 642 CE, Amr ibn al-As reported 40,000 Jews paying head tax (jizyyah).
Taking the numbers above at face value would therefore suggest the following approximate history: ~40% up to 117 CE, very little for two hundred years, then growing to ~10% by 600 CE. I don't know of any specific large scale migrations during this period, with the possible exception of the expulsion in 415.
For some more details see Jewish Survival in Late Antique Alexandria by Guy Stroumsa.

The Jewish population of Carthage was both newer and smaller than that of Alexandria: substatial settlement dates to the Roman Empire and the community was primarily Latin speaking. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the community grew after both 117CE and 135CE due to migrations, and shrunk in the 6th century due to religious persecution under Justinian. A Jewish necropolis providing space for as many as 1500 burials was dated to the third century; the size of the necropolis suggests a relatively populous community, but I've not seen any attempts to estimate the Jewish population. Sadly, there are significantly fewer physical remains from Carthage and its vicinity than from Egypt or Cyrenaica. For a summary of what is known about the community see The Cambridge History of Judaism (Vol 4, pp68-75).
Comment: Unfortunately there's much less information about Carthage: I've updated the answer with what I could find.
Comment: Thanks. I tried to get Cartage numbers from contemporary books, such as "Against Jews" by Tertullian, but no grip on the numbers there either.
Comment: Thanks! This is exactly the kind of info I am looking for. Could you point me to a similar data about Carthage?
Comment: The Lord's Prayer Through North African Eyes by Michael Joseph Brown (p182) estimates the 3rd century community at just 300-500 people, mentioning the necropolis and referencing Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage by J. B. Rives (p214-234) which I don't have access to. Brown says that the community grew and peaked in the 4th century. Roman Carthage's population is usually estimated at around 350,000.
Comment: There is a bit of a problem reconciling 500 in 3rd century with 350000 in 4th century. If the numbers are even approximately correct that would imply either migration(s) (where from?) or very successful proselytizing (when and whom?)
Comment: 350,000 is the estimate for the total population of Carthage, not the Jewish population!
Comment: So Brown's Jewish community estimate is: very little until 2nd C, 0.1% in 3rd C, peaking (0.2%? 0.5%? 1%?) in 4th C, then falling again. Don't know how good this estimate is though...

Jewish diaspora in the late antiquity


CASESAFEID() apex equivalent

Question: Is there any function in Apex which could emulate functionality of the CASESAFEID() formula function? I'm trying to get 18-char Id variant from the standard one.
Answer: Per the Apex docs on primitive datatypes, "Note that if you set [an] ID to a 15-character value, Apex automatically converts the value to its 18-character representation."  So it should be enough to assign your 15 character id to an ID-typed variable, and then back to a string, like so:
<code>string idStr = '001E000000nwg7g';   // 15 character id
id idval = idStr;                   // assign to ID variable
idStr = idval;                      // back to string to prove the point
system.debug('18 char: ' + idStr);  // note that you could just append idval instead
                                    // of converting to string first
</code>
Remember that assigning an invalid id string to an ID-typed variable will throw an exception; if there's any chance that your 15 character value may not be a valid id, wrap the assignment in a try/catch block.
Comment: Good enough for me :)
Thank you, Jason!
Comment: Thanks for breaking this down line by line for understanding. Assuming you start with `accountId` as a 15 char string, one could get this done in one line: `accountId = (String)(Id)accountId`.
Comment: @SwisherSweet in fact, you can just use `accountId = (Id)accountId;`, as Id values are always implicitly cast to 18-character strings whenever they are used as strings.
Answer: You can just type the string cast to ID. Like (Id) idStr;

CASESAFEID() apex equivalent


Sequential quadratic programming source

Question: What are the good text books to learn SQP? Are there any online courses that you can suggest?
Answer: I would suggest reading Numerical Optimization by Nocedal and Wright. It has a pretty neat chapter devoted to SQP methods.
Answer: I agree with @fpacaud 's recommendation of the Nocedal and Wright book.
Another source which is complementary to the Nocedal and Wright book, and is more in-depth in certain areas, is the 125 page long Chapter 15, "Sequential Quadratic Programming Methods" in "Trust Region Methods" by Andrew R. Conn, Nicholas I. M. Gould, and Philippe L. Toint. In particular, that chapter can be bought as an electronic purchase of that individual chapter for \$14.95  (edit: \$19.99 as of Nov 2022, the ravages of inflation) https://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/1.9780898719857.ch15 .
Answer: In the book Nonlinear Optimization (2010) by Bomze, Demyanov, Fletcher and Telarky, there is the chapter The Sequential Quadratic Programming Method written by Fletcher.
Comment: Available as a freebie at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226679871_The_Sequential_Quadratic_Programming_Method .
Answer: The use of SQP to solve interesting technical problems can be seen in this work (pp. 26-31). In addition, a project HQP developed for over 20 years is available on this site free of charge.

Sequential quadratic programming source


How does the MIDI data for polyphonic aftertouch differ from "normal" aftertouch?

Question: From what I understand, aftertouch in MIDI is a parameter (like a continuous controller) that a synthesizer can respond to.  I have heard that some keyboards can send polyphonic aftertouch data, where the aftertouch information is sent per-note.  But how does this work, if aftertouch is just one parameter?  Is there a mechanism where the note data can be set alongside the aftertouch data, or is it just aftertouch per-channel, which would max out at 16 "notes" and intrude on the other channels?  Or are these two sent as entirely different data in the first place?
Comment: See this reference:  http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midimessages.php
Answer: Aftertouch and polyphonic aftertouch are two different event types in the MIDI standard:
<code>1010nnnn    0kkkkkkk  0vvvvvvv  Polyphonic Key Pressure (Aftertouch).  This
                                message is most often sent by pressing down on the
                                key after it "bottoms out". (kkkkkkk) is the key
                                (note) number. (vvvvvvv) is the pressure value.

1101nnnn    0vvvvvvv            Channel Pressure (After-touch). This message is
                                most often sent by pressing down on the key after
                                it "bottoms out". This message is different from
                                polyphonic after-touch. Use this message to send
                                the single greatest pressure value (of all the
                                current depressed keys). (vvvvvvv) is the pressure
                                value.
</code>
Both kinds of aftertouch are tied to a specific MIDI channel.  In addition, the polyphonic variant is also, as you noted yourself, tied to a specific note.
A synthesizer or MIDI controller can send an arbitrary amount of both polyphonic key pressure and channel pressure events (or at least as fast as the MIDI link allows).
Comment: We posted our answers at about the same time, so I didn't see yours when I posted mine.  But I like yours better!  Thanks :)
Answer: Kim Burgaard pretty much hit the nail on the head, but I wanted to add just one small bit of explanation.
The reason that we have two different types of aftertouch is that the sensors used to measure aftertouch are somewhat expensive from a manufacturing perspective, and therefore most mid- to low-end MIDI keyboards have only one sensor for all keys.  More expensive keyboards have per-key aftertouch sensors, but both types are capable of sending some type of aftertouch data.
Comment: The big exception was Ensoniq. They included poly aftertouch on a slew of mid-level synths and samplers.
Answer: Some better googling led me to the answer.  They are indeed separate data and aren't the same thing.
"Normal" aftertouch actually isn't aftertouch.  It's Channel Pressure and uses a different status byte than Aftertouch.
Channel pressure is just a pressure value, global to the channel, while aftertouch sends the note number in addition to pressure as part of its data.  Only one channel is required.
Answer: i guess this question is old, but it should be noted that VERY few keyboards can generate polyphonic aftertouch (a note specific control - also known as "note pressure"), but almost all synth keyboards can generate CHANNEL aftertouch (a control for affecting all the notes in a channel - "channel pressure").
ALSO, it should be noted that not all synthesizers even RESPOND to polyphonic aftertouch.  I mean, what does monophonic aftertouch (channel pressure) =do= to the sound?  Usually adds something like vibrato, same sort of thing a mod wheel would do.
What does polyphonic aftertouch (note pressure) =do= to the sound?  Mmmm, whatever the synthesizer is programmed to do.  But it's PER NOTE - so maybe the 3rd of a chord gets vibrato, but not the 1st and 5th (for example).
The reason not many synthesizers even respond to note pressure (poly aftertouch) is

it's rare to even SEE it from a keyboard.
response to it has to be programmed per the preset and that adds greatly to what a preset can be expected to do (and must be implemented and saved and so forth).
note pressure sends a FLOOD of messages over midi.  And can clog up responding to NOTES fast enough causing hiccups in the sound - bad news.


Splitting Sales Proceeds with Overseas Partner

Question: I have jointly developed a software with a company in India. I live in the US, We have sold that software to a US company and will receive royalties on a monthly basis. If I receive the royalty into my bank account and then send the share of my indian partner to him, do i have to pay tax on the total income or only on my portion? How do i account for the indian partner's share in my tax return?
Comment: Do you have a company that does the actual selling of the software? Who owns it? What's the legal relationship between you and your partner?
Comment: It is an app, so the royalties come from the app store. Legal partnership between me and partner.
Answer: If you have an actual legal entity (legal partnership) that is jointly owned by you and your partner, then the partnership receives the money, and the partnership then sends money to you and your partner. Each of you will pay tax on your share. It's possible that the partnership itself may have to pay taxes.
If you are not following that procedure in terms of actual money flow - for example if the royalties are paid into your personal account instead of a partnership account - then you may have trouble convincing the tax authorities that this is the legal situation. If this is a small amount of money then you may be better off just paying the taxes.


linux - disabling and enabling link-local

Question: I'm trying to find out how to disable and enable link local addresses, on my linux machine(also on arm). So basically for IPv4 and IPv6 I would like to either disable (or bring down) both addresses together or even individually if needs be. Then to enable both again. I would also like to check if they have been disabled and enabled each time.
Is it possible to execute system command line scripts to achieve this, for instance
*ip -f inet route*  or
*ip -f inet6 route*

Is it possible to do this without restarting the network?
Also, I have, using the 2 examples above, obtained both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. For example,
ip -f inet route | grep \"dev eth0\" | cut -d' ' -f1
ip -f inet route | grep \"dev eth0\" | cut -d' ' -f1

but I am concerned that the grep string is not unique enough to search for the line(s) where the address(es) are. Is there a better way to do this?
Thanks.
Comment: Provided you know that you have a certain link-local address, you use `ip addr del fe80::xyzfillinhere dev eth0`, not `ip -f inet route`.
Answer: ip link set lo down ?
you can operate with adresses with ip addr too


Are all skewers compatible with all bikes?

Question: I'm switching from a 1999 Rock Hopper mountain bike to a new Jamis Aurora road bike. I want to move my cheapy security skewers over to the new bike, but they look a bit different from the skewers the new bike came with. Are all skewers compatible with all bikes, or are there different types?
Comment: Mostly, so long as they're the same length.  There are a few bikes that require oddball skewers, though.
Answer: Generally speaking, the answer is no. Not all skewers are compatible with all quick release wheels. There are different diameters and widths of skewers. Notably, many downhill bikes have beefier skewers that are built with a much larger diameter to be more durable. Bikes with wider and narrower axles will have less standard skewers too.
In your case, it is likely that the skewers will be compatible. Even if the skewer isn't quite long enough to have threads protruding from the nut, it will still be okay if the difference is less than 2mm.
See this forum post for more info:

True, the standard nowadays is 100mm up front and 130mm in the rear, BUT
When you start talking about different types of bikes, you get into different width hubs.
Tandems have a standard rear spacing of 140 or 145mm, some downhill/freeride bikes have a whopping 150mm rear spacing and 110mm front hub spacing and monstrous 20mm through bolt skewers, older bikes with French or Italian standards can have wacky sizes from 91mm 96mm, the list goes on.
But you are correct in saying the "standard" size for skewers is 100mm up front and 130mm in the rear.
Comment: 130 mm is road standard; 135 mm is mountain (and looks to be Road for disc specific).
Answer: They should be of a compatible width but its unlikely that they'll be the same length though.  Most road hubs have different widths to MTB's.  Fortunately for you, most road hubs are narrower and as long as there's enough thread on your skewer you'll probably be fine and should be able to just cut a bit off the end.


What's the difference between Salami and Pepperoni?

Question: What is the difference as far as content-pork, beef?
Answer: Pepperoni is a variety of Salami. Salami is a dried sausage which can be made of pork, beef, veal, horse, donkey, poultry or game. Different spices, smoking and vegetable ingredients give the different salame their particular taste.
Pepperoni limits its ingredients to beef pork and poultry and belongs to the more spicy varieties of salame.
Comment: So a pepperoni is always a salami but a salami isn't always a pepperoni?
Comment: Yes @KateyHW. Salami is the category, pepperoni is one of several things in that category.
Answer: Pepperoni is simply a variety of hot salami, derived from Italian salami (soppressata from Calabria or spicy dry sausage from Naples). If there is any difference in the pork/beef ratio, that is not what makes the difference between salami and pepperoni; some variety would use more beef, but that is just a regional difference.
Answer: Salami is a generic name used for a product made of ground meat, seasoned and then cured (or smoked). There are countless variations of Salami (here in Italy for example, i think every region has more than one traditional Salami).
They can differ from each other on the meat used, the granularity of the grinding process, spices, use of just air or smoke as a method of curing, additional additives and preservatives (usually in industrial produced salmi), curing time..
Pepperoni is simply one of those variations and usually it's smoked and spicy, with a fairly fine grain.
Answer: Salami is a catch-all term for a wide variety of dried/cured/smoked force-meats made from pork, beef and poultry, originating in Italy.   Every region, and even every city/town/village (and even family in some regions) makes their own variety of salami.   They can range from mild (like Genoa salami) to spicy (like sopressata salami).
Pepperoni is actually not an Italian creation.  It's an Italian-American creation, just like pizza and spaghetti with meatballs.  It's basically just sopressata salami that is even spicier and more thoroughly dried.
In Italy, salami is most often served/consumed at lunch.  In the US, pepperoni is most often served as a pizza topping.
Answer: Salami is meat.  Pepperoni is dried meat.
Comment: Salami is a type of dry sausage. Pepperoni too. Also, "dry meat" is somewhat misleading when you are talking about dry sausage, it's normally reserved for pastrami style dried meats.


Probable IIS changes after update

Question: We have developed a module which enters Windows Scheduled tasks in on our server that are calling KeepAlive pages on different servers. Normally everything went fine, but since 21-07-2011 on 17:00 all our KeepAlive pages generate errors. Those errors are because on IIS level the defaultLanguage of the different websites that run there are set to VB instead of c#. Has there be any update or whatsoever that can mess up a setting like this? How can it be that suddenly the standard language on IIS level has been changed to VB instead of C#?
Hope anyone has a bright idea on this issue. I'm guessing perhaps some update has been run (our machine installs updates automatically). Can anyone track this? Thanks in advance!
Answer: The default defaultLanguage is set at the IIS root level (ASP.NET -> .NET Compliation) and inherited by all websites unless redefined there.
In your scenario there seem to be two possible causes:
1) The defaultLanguage was changed at the IIS root level. Since VB is the preset defaultLangauge it would mean that your defaultLanguage was set to C# at the root level (and changed at/around the date you mentioned). It would be relatively easy to reproduce an update reverting your selected defaultLanguage C# back to VB.
2) All your sites did override the unchanged defaultLanguage set at IIS root in their own web.config and this configuration was modified in every web.config.
You could investigate if there are differences between websites inheriting defaultLanguage and websites overriding it via web.config-

Probable IIS changes after update


Constructions like the double accusative outside of the Ancient Greek word "διδασκειν"

Question: I'm looking for examples of having 2 or more nouns in the same case but with the different semantic roles given by the differing referents of the nouns, not entirely by one of morphological case, syntax nor context.
For example, the double accusative in Ancient Greek:
"τὸν λόγον φῐ́λον διδάσκω" only differs in emphasis from "φῐ́λον τὸν λόγον διδάσκω" etc even though "λόγον" and "φῐ́λον" are classed as being in the same case, that is *something other than the case markers ('-ον') or the word order says that a friend is the person being taught and the reason is the thing being taught, rather it's the things themselves. Canst thou imagine a friend being taught to the abstract thing logic?*.
Examples within Greek but using a different word welcomed.
Comment: On this site it is expected that examples in other scripts be given in those scripts. Transliterations are nice but optional, whereas the original language script is essential.
Comment: How about examples where the nouns aren't direct arguments of the verb? For instance Latin *putō ACC [esse] ACC* "I think X is Y"
Comment: @Draconis doesn't syntax differentiate in those cases?
Comment: Sometimes, but Latin word order (especially in poetry) can be treated as entirely free. Subjects usually precede predicates but even that isn't a hard rule.
Comment: ...as I now see Eleshar's answer demonstrates. There are plenty of other examples if you want 'em.
Answer: Latin is full of these:
Illum meum amicum appelo. (I call him my friend)
Romulum regem romanum fecerun. (They made Romulus into a king)
This is with verbs of change (somebody changed/made into something), verbs of appelation (somebody being called something but also nominated to be something, similarly to the previous example) and verbs of considering/belief (somebody considered to be something).
Comment: This might be more what I'm asking for than what Artemij said because 'to make a king into Romulus's doesn't make sense (because 'Romulus' is a proper noun not something that denotes a category) and neither does 'I call my friend him'. How do 'meum amicum Illum appelo' and 'regem romanum Romulum fecerun' sound?
Comment: Look at my original question again. I've tried to clarify myself.
Comment: @Jacob Stewart But it is the same thing. You asked for double accusative distinguished only by the things themselves. So you can't make a king into Romulus the same way as you can't teach a friend to a language. But you can make king into a soldier or soldier into a king (_Militem regem fecerunt_).
Comment: I could be the same thing, I realise that. But I wanted to ask to make sure: How would 'meum amicum Illum appelo' and 'regem romanum Romulum fecerun' sound to the best of thy knowledge?
Comment: @Jacob Stewart I probably did not understand what you meant. Regarding the word order, I do not believe it would have any impact on the meaning. It would probably modify just the topicality but the semantic restrictions remain the same. WIth the other one (_Militem regem fecerunt / Regem militem fecerunt_), I would say that the first one is typically object and the second one the attribute but again, you could put focus on either by intonation to change the meaning.
Comment: @Jacob Stewart btw I would bet somebody else's left hand the same construction can be found in Ancient Greek too.
Answer: The first example that comes to my mind is the dative shift in English, i.e. the construction found in the following sentence:

I gave John a book.

Both arguments are NPs (rather than PPs), so formally you can consider it a sort of "same case" situation. Both arguments can become Subjects of a passive sentence (The book has been given to John by me vs. John has been given a book by me), which makes them equally good Direct Objects.
Dative shift is a very debated construction: some scholars consider it derived from the canonical transfer construction (such as I gave a book to John), while others think that the difference in meaning between the two is relevant enough to view them as two independent constructions (see more on Wikipedia).
Another interesting construction is to be found in Russian, in a particular type of sentences with a dative Subject governed by an infinitive, with a deontic meaning. In case the predicate has also a recipient semantic argument, then the dative-marked syntactic arguments become two:

Не мне тебе объяснять
Ne mne tebe ob"jasnjat'
not I-DAT you-DAT explain-INF
"It is not up to me to explain it to you" (notice also the two PPs headed by to in the English translation)

Although frequently used, this construction can be still considered ungrammatical by some speakers.
Comment: While interesting, neither of thy two examples are what I'm looking for. In thy English example syntax disambiguates. Also it's worth noting that in the Russian example 'мне' and 'тебе' refer to similar enough things that it can't be the 'role-agnostic meanings' / referents that distinguish the different sentences.
Comment: @JacobStewart I could have misunderstood your question from the beginning. Anyways, note that Greek διδάσκω can also be translated in English with two "accusatives": *I teach you Math*
Comment: But "I teach Maths you" doesn't work so it's *syntax* that disambiguates (but possibly as well as reference.
Comment: I've always figured that this 'dative shift' was probably the result of VIO being the default word order and so it stuck that way when the dative case was lost.
Comment: How much truth is there to this?
Answer: Possibly this Hebrew case (with verbs of teaching and asking): https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/double-accusative.327943/


Did the Romans pour wine down wells for health purposes?

Question: I've heard some kind of story that after the Romans would conquer a new village or city, they would pour wine (or other alcohol?) down the wells to kill the bacteria and make it safe for future drinking. Has anyone ever heard of such a story?
Comment: Sounds plausible, do you have any sources on where you heard this?
Comment: Never but now I am curious.
Comment: It came up in passing in conversation, that's why I suspected it might be an old wives' tale of sorts.
Comment: I believe, although I too only have heard it second hand, it was "sour wine", and the concept of "bad water" *certainly* did exist, even if they knew nothing about bacteria.. Incidentally, "sour wine" is, of course, vinegar!
Answer: If you heard that the pouring of wine was to kill bacteria, you know it's a fake.  You have to wait till Louis Pasteur for bacteria.  Also, unless there was a whole lot of wine/alcohol poured, it would have no effect whatsoever on the water in the well. Wine was very expensive in Roman times -- up to several slaves for a barrel in Gaul around 50BC as Caesar tells us -- unless I remember wrongly the source but I am fairly sure it is Caesar. If Roman were indeed doing so, it would have had nothing to do with making it safe for drinking.
Any wine pouring must have been symbolic or/and religious.  Sadly, I do not know of any sources for this.
Comment: It may not be bacterial but cleansing, though I agree with you they would not know about bacteria but they knew about the health benefits of wine.  Although I haven't seen any sources on wine or wells mentioned about the Romans.
Comment: @MichaelF: Agreed.  My point was that if the stated reason was bacteria, then it would be bs.  However, cleansing as part of a religious ritual is probable.  I still would fail to see how a bottle or two of wine would purify the waters in a well.
Comment: I recently found this interview which makes no mention of the practice either (though admittedly his expertise is Classics and not in biology or the history of science):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/roman-aqueducts.html


Should all "Ask A Question" pages encourage the poster to upload their blend?

Question: Should the "Ask A Question" page encourage the poster to upload their blend and also provide a means to do so? So often we have to ask OP to post their blend somewhere, but I think it'd save OP & us a lot of time & energy if we made it obvious that seeing the blend is often essential in solving the issue. If we need a file host, developer.blender.org has one so maybe we could use theirs.
Comment: Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/297/can-we-have-a-service-for-uploading-blendfiles?rq=1
Comment: Are you asking for comments and feedback about an idea, or making a feature-request? ...because the context in how the 'answers' and voting go (and how it is handled internally) are very different. I removed the [feature-request] tag for now, but feel free to edit your question or tags to pose your question as intended.
Comment: I just didn't know how to tag it...first discussion about what others think, then if people like it, it could be a new feature.
Answer: Not all questions require a .blend, however for most trouble shooting questions (e.g. "Why is X happening?") a .blend is the easiest way to go.
I don't actually have any demographics (I couldn't find a good way to search for trouble shooting questions), but I think that less than half of our questions are trouble shooting questions worthy of a .blend.
I think that if we do add a notice to the ask question page, then we should say that it's probably only important if they have a trouble shooting question.

My only other concern is that it might deter users who can't or don't want to share their .blends.
Comment: Yes, I think that was what I was thinking: suggest the poster upload the blend if they think it necessary and suggest troubleshooting as a typical scenario when it is usually necessary.
Comment: That is why I think a HELP!!!! tag would be useful, you could easily determine when a user is asking "Why is this happening??-Can-Not-Fix"
Comment: Well, on a per-question basis it's already pretty easy to tell (in most cases :P)
Answer: In my opinion, yes. If for no other reason than to cut back on all the images that get uploaded in the process of troubleshooting a problem.
I personally wouldn't make it a requirement, but i would make it an obvious and highly encouraged possibility (perhaps even a pop-up prompt)
EDIT: the only major drawback would be that blend files can get large if they include alot of textures / sounds / videos
Answer: I think this would be a great addition to Blender.SE. But as Gandalf pointed out, it's not always relevant to the question. But maybe we can make it very obvious that uploading is optional. (Maybe only give the option for certain tags. Or have the uploading-field grayed out/opacity reduced)
Or maybe take a different approach. What if we can have a "vote for/ask for .blend"? So the people that are answering can request a .blend. Then the OP will be notified and given instructions on how to upload (or encouraged to upload more info/screenshots, if he can't upload blend).
That way, we can automate the process. It'll be easier for us to give a solution when we need a .blend file. Also, it'll be easier for OP to upload(especially if the uploading process is similar to uploading images. Just choose blend from computer, but you don't need to redirect to pasteall.org. Blend-file is automatically added to post, at the bottom.)


What kind of role do the badges play on AskUbuntu?

Question: If this site is supposed to be a question/answer forum let me forward this one. Tumbleweed badge awarded to me for a question that I posted and everybody else has ignored? What does that mean? Was my question asked wrong? Was it not significant enough for all of you guru's out there? Previously I asked another question on this site which earned me another badge, "Student", whatever that means. But that old profile of mine is not accessible by me already, so I had to create another profile (this one). People, humans, I am confused, my brothers and sisters. What's the point of this game, dear ones?
Answer: There is nothing wrong in being awarded a Tumbleweed. I have one too. You shouldnt take it seriously. We here have lot of fun answering serious questions. Badges are awarded depending on how serious your answers are.
There are also a few, that are just plain funny.  I always find a new one and sometimes it makes me smile, and sometimes it makes me wanna do something, to earn that badge. Coming back to your tumbleweed question, it is possible that no one has done what you are asking for. It might be possible, but people dont want to find an answer for it, because it is too simple to waste their time on, or too complicated to give an outright answer. You should just keep an open mind.
All the guys here are dedicated people, who make an effort to answer all the questions posted here. But you should remember, that they have a life beyond the forums, and AU might not always be a priority for some of them. So, just relax, come join the forum, and contribute to humanity, ie Ubuntu!
Comment: If you get a tumbleweed consider editing it to make it more detailed, easier to read, etc. It's hard to post a detailed question right off the bat without having to edit it.
Answer: Badges are designed as few 'gaming' devices on the site. The first that comes to mind is flair!
They show the community and other users accomplishments you've made in the community. While some badges are easier to get than others none are really trivial - It's not easy to ask a question that gets 'untouched' for a tumbleweed period of time, on the same note necromancer is to highlight those users taking care of tumbleweeds.

Brian has 37 pieces of flair.

Second, it's a gaming device. StackExchange is constantly improving the network and will occasionally add badges to help keep things interesting. Ideally there here to help users have objectives other than just answer questions for what basically amounts to no compensation (Outside of reputation and unicorn bucks)

So you can view each badge, what it means, and who has gotten it on the Badges page each has it's own meaning and level of difficulty to achieve (Bronze is 'easiest', Silver is 'relatively hard', and Gold is 'got to really try hard to get this').
Answer: Isn't somehow cool having an assortment of badges, if you're really honest?
It also shows how experienced a user is, although you can have a experienced new ask ubuntu user.


How to set "full graphics" on 11.04

Question: I could originally change the graphics to be really "flashy" on 10.10 but now there is no option to. The graphics driver IS working fine also.
Answer: I take it you're referring to the Visual Effects tab in the Appearance applet in Ubuntu 10.10 and earlier versions, which had the options None, Normal, and Extra. I gather it isn't compatible with Unity, which is why it is missing.
An option that is still available is to install compizconfig-settings-manager, available in the Ubuntu repositories, which allows for a lot of optional special effects and tweaking, including some specific to Unity. There was a comment by Mark Shuttleworth that some of those special effects are buggy under Unity.

How to set "full graphics" on 11.04


Bitcoin Mining Through VPN

Question: I'm fairly new to bitcoin and mining and am currently using a very restrictive ISP(port forwarding is not permitted). Therefore, it is not possible to connect to the bitcoin network(port 8333 is blocked). I also have a work station, in a different network, which doesn't share the above limitation.
I am using ubuntu 12.04 and went for the OpenVPN package. I can connect to the remote machine but don't know how to route mining traffic through it. Also, I don't want to delegate mining tasks to the remote box as it is a low end machine.
Is mining through a VPN tunnel possible in this context?
Comment: Are you sure that a port forwarding is needed for mining? As far as I know, you just need to be able to send traffic out on that port. (if your ISP blocks everything but port 80 for traffic or some such, that would be a problem)
Comment: You need that port when peers broadcast transaction information; and sadly yes the ISP blocks all inbound connections
Comment: There is no way, at least not with a pool. I have a restrictive firewall (no UPnP or ports forwarded) and I have no problems connecting to the bitcoin network. Do you mean the ISP blocks all outbound connections on non-standard ports or some such?
Comment: Yes, nobody can connect to my machine. I am currently trying to set up OpenVPN on the remote machine.
Comment: I'm also having what appears to be an issue with running `bitcoind` behind OpenVPN. `bitcoind` appears to crash after a few minutes with nothing in `~/.bitcoin/debug.log`. Couple questions:
    1. How can I tell the cause for the daemon terminating if there's nothing in the log file?
    2. Do I need to make a change to my IP tables, or some other aspect of my VPN configuration? Not exactly sure conceptually what is required to get bitcoin network traffic in/out through the VPN. Thanks guys!
Answer: Yup.  Most of the common VPN services would work with it, it's a normal TCP/UDP sort of system.  I use torguard VPN, but I think most would work.
Answer: I've managed to route all traffic that runs through eth0 to tun0. The tun0 interface is created by default once the VPN service starts(given that the bridging option(tan) was commented out on both the client and the server config files).
Running "netstat -nr" gives the routing table. Then, all duplicate routes need to be deleted. For example if there are more than one Destination(s) pointing to the same Gateway one needs to be dropped in order for the other to work properly. Otherwise packets are sent through both gateways. In my case I had to delete the route which was pointing to my NAT and leave the one which pointed to my VPN server's address(usually 10.8.0.1 is assigned by default). In order to drop a certain route run the command:
<code>sudo route del default gw <NAT internal IP, i.e. 192.168.2.1>.
</code>

Bitcoin Mining Through VPN


How can I fix Office Sharepoint Search service?

Question: For some reason, in operations > server services,  Office Sharepoint Search Service is MISSING!  Which means I cant get Shared services working, which in turn I cannot get, and I do not think I have ever got Usage and reporting to see who is visiting my website, counter and with what OS/ browser ETC.  I dont think I have ever seen this work in the 2 years trying with sharepoint.  So in essense I have two problems, most important SEARCH, second usage reports.
When trying to search, all i get is unknown error.  Nothing is in my event viewer at all.
I have tried http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=96 , in the comments on that site, on other person reports search is missing entirely and is going to uninstall.  Im tired of uninstall sharepoint and resinstalling to fix an odd off issue.  I have things setup with Team foundation server that took forever to get work and reinstallation is not my solution.
As for usage reporting, this is what microsoft responds to the "
Both Windows SharePoint Services Usage logging and Office SharePoint Usage Processing must be enabled to view usage reports. Please contact your administrator to ensure that these services are enabled.   " error
I cannot do all the steps since SSP needs to be setup which i cant above.
Answer: Can't you select Shared Services in the menu on the left (underneath Operations and APp management). In the page that opens create a new SSP


Differences between 正在, 正 and 在 with the meaning of an action in progress?

Question: When should I prefer to use only 正, only 在 or both together? Are there any rules? Does it sound really weird or incorrect to native speakers if someone use them improperly?
Comment: Can we get some examples of your "usage"?
Answer: 正 in itself has many meanings, one of which is "just", and thus can be used in conjunction with 在.
正在 is what you are doing at this very moment, or where you are right now, or in general what is currently present, the progressive aspect (the English -ing form) if you will.
我们正在吃饭 = We are eating
西方正在经历的艰难 = The economic hardship that the West is presently enduring
我正在北京 = I am currently in Beijing (I just got here)
我在北京 = I am in Beijing (more or less stationary)
You could not use 正 alone in a similar fashion.
The progressive 正在 could also be contrasted with the continuous aspect using 着. 我正在穿衣服 = I am getting dressed (current action), while 我穿着衣服 = I am wearing clothes (current state).
Then it gets more tricky when you use both simultaneously, as in 我正在爱着你.
Comment: Actually you can use 正 without 在, such as "我们正喝着酒,他就来了". [Offtopic: 我正在爱着你 sounds kinda weird to me]
Comment: I agree with @Rephinx 我正在爱着你 does sound awkward. The act of love is (usually) so long-lasting that it's considered a habitual state, which you can't use 正在 for. 正在 should be used for actions-in-progress that are expected to finish in the forseeable future.
Comment: It's worth noting that 正在 and 在 do not always refer to the present tense:
昨天我在图书馆的时候,我正在看书。 When I was at the library yesterday, I was reading a book.
This makes the "something happening at this moment" definition that is often given quite confusing. A better definition would be "indicates something happening right now (or 'then', if the time context is not the present)"

In English, we can say, "When I was at the library yesterday I read a book" or "When I was at the library yesterday, I was reading a book" They have the same meaning. I'm not sure if that is the case in Chinese, though.