What is a failed sprint?

Question: A sprint has just ended. All stories, but one were done by the software engineers. Should the sprint be labeled as 'failed' because of the story that was not completed? What exactly is a failed sprint?
Comment: Possible duplicate already answered by https://pm.stackexchange.com/a/18228/4271, https://pm.stackexchange.com/a/8440/4271, or https://pm.stackexchange.com/a/25867/4271.
Comment: Hi Adrian, I would call it normal business by normal means. If at least 50% of your sprints don't 'fail' then your organization is almost certainly deceiving itself in some way. 'Fail' is an ugly word, 'study and learn' is one better, and more accurate, way to say it.
Answer: According to Mike Cohn

It's quite common for a team to have a bit of unfinished work at the end of an agile sprint or iteration. Ideally, a team would finish every item on its sprint backlog every sprint. But, for a variety of reasons, that isn't always the case.

Accordingly to Scrum.org:

The Scrum Goal is the creation of productive and creative products rather than projects.
Each Sprint is an experiment. Its results should be inspected and correspondingly adapted.
If it is impossible to Inspect the results of the Sprint (experiment) and to Adapt, it is considered a failure.

From this, we learn the sprint shouldn't be labeled as failure just because one User Story wasn't finished (that User Story should go into product backlog and not directly into the next sprint though). When can we then say the sprint was a failure? If we can't inspect the results of the Sprint and adapt.
Example of a failed Sprint:

The team managed to complete a big number [sic] of functionality and brought to the Sprint Review exactly what it forecasted [sic] ("thanks" to some overtime and lowering quality). But nobody is present at the Sprint Review except the Product Owner. The Development Team never sees the end-users, and other stakeholders are always too busy to visit the Review. There is no feedback on the Increment. Then we skip the Retrospective because we have a lot of work to do. We start the next "successful" Sprint.
Answer: I am personally adverse to the idea of ever saying a sprint 'failed'.
Scrum uses the term 'inspect' 27 times, and 'adapt' 16 times over the course of the guide.
Scrum also has no notion of 'failure', and the only reference to failure in Scrum is listed here:

Failure to include any of these events results in reduced transparency and is a lost opportunity to inspect and adapt.

Scrum's purpose isn't to give you confidence that you will deliver every single story you create, in the sprint they were assigned to.   That's a management artifact that we assign to scrum because we're human and we like to believe we're in control.
In fact, in the agile manifesto, they say something very key to determining 'success' or 'failure':

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it

That doesn't sound like the manifesto of someone that has all the answers.  We are uncovering better ways of developing software -- notice the present tense.  Software development is an emerging field where hidden constraints of people and machines are uncovered every day.  It's going to happen to you and your team, and it happening -- and thus putting a story in jeopardy of being delivered -- isn't a failure, it's natural.
Scrum's purpose is to give you short iterations to try to deliver working software in that will be used by the customer, and then adapt to changing circumstances as they come up.  "Failure" in the eyes of scrum would be to not change when the circumstances change, to not 'inspect and adapt', as it were.
In fact, Scrum doesn't use the term 'commitment' any longer in the Scrum guide -- they've changed it to forecast, for the exact reason I list above.  We may get upset at the weatherperson when they get the forecast wrong, but we still have to have our umbrellas ready if they are wrong.
That's Scrum. Having your umbrella ready -- not firing the weatherperson because they got the forecast wrong.
If your team has inspected and adapted; if they've responded to changing circumstances, if they have adapted -- then they haven't failed. They've done precisely what agile methodologies and what Scrum dictates.
Comment: @paulj for well formed sprint goals, yes. I don't see not meeting those goals as a failure. It's learning, which As a methodology for delivering software Scrum excels at a framework for learning.
Comment: Your post fills me with hope, George. I wept a little, thank you.
Comment: Sprints either result in a potentially releasable increment, or not.
Sprints either meet and exceed the sprint goal, or not.
Answer: From the Scrum Guide:

During Sprint Planning the Scrum Team also crafts a Sprint Goal. The Sprint Goal is an objective that will be met within the Sprint through the implementation of the Product Backlog, and it provides guidance to the Development Team on why it is building the Increment.

So basically, in each Sprint it's not enough to keep yourself busy with work, or to make sure all the stories you took in the Sprint get done by the end. You also want to achieve something that adds value to the product. So you set yourself a Goal. If you reach that Goal, your sprint is a success, if you don't, you can say you failed the Sprint.
So defining what a successful or failed Sprint means depends on the Goal, not the stories you work on. The goal of the sprint is not to finish all stories in the sprint, the goal is something that adds value. For example, the work you do during a Sprint doesn't always relate to the goal you decided upon. Say your goal is to "Add the shopping cart functionality" and you have stories for that. But you might also work on some bugs which aren't related to the goal. If you fail to fix all the bugs but build the shopping cart functionality then your sprint is a success. If you fix all the bugs but fail to build the shopping cart functionality, then you failed to reach your goal.
Sometimes you can fail your goal for other reasons. Maybe you were too ambitious, maybe you vaguely defined a goal and by the end you get a better understanding and realize you wanted something else, maybe you sacrificed some quality to reach it, sometimes s#it just happens, etc. If you miss your goal in one sprint, it's better to focus on ways to improve your further sprints than dwelling to much on the fact that you "failed" a sprint.
Answer: A failed sprint means you did not reach the sprint goal.
That can mean all stories but one were completed, but that one was critical to reach the goal.
Only you can know whether this is the case here.
Keep in mind that the stories pulled into the sprint are a forecast of what the team should be able to do. Saying "all stories must be done" as some inexperienced people do, is not very productive, because that means you have no focus in your sprint, with every story being of equal importance. In addition you set yourself up for failure, because if you can do X stories on average, you are bound to miss that forecast roughly every other sprint, that is the nature of "average" or forecast.
Answer: Backlog and 'Fail-fast' are at the very foundation of agile development.
In a way, 'Failure in a sprint' is actually a desirable quality.
Failed sprint, according to me, is a well-executed sprint.
Failure facilitates continuous improvement.
100% success of sprint happens in 2 cases:

Team is complacent and is not pursuing ambitious goals.
Organization is adhering to strict process that does not allow team
to operate efficiently / creatively.

Major failure of sprint happens when the organization has a governance model / an unavoidable process that interferes with development activities.
Small failures do happen (supposed to happen) in a well-executed sprint.
Answer: For my 2 pence worth:
Lets not get confused between a sprint that has "Failed" and a sprint that is a "Failure". IMHO. A sprint that fails is a sprint that does not meet its target (ie: deliver all of the points that were assigned to it). That is NOT a failure! That is an opportunity to identify practices by the team that can be (and must be) addressed. It is something that must be reviewed during the retrospective, identifying what the cause was, what the remedy could be, and a clear plan of action to implement that remedy.
A failure on the other hand can be boiled down to one of two things. Firstly, a sprint delivers nothing. Zero points. Unless all of the developers and / or testers go on strike, or some disaster occurs and no one can do any work, this is impossible. No matter how little, something is delivered.
Secondly, The sprint goal is missed. In my experience as a scrum master, this happens through interference. If story refinement is done correctly, each story that is promoted to the sprint and its acceptance criteria must adhere to that goal otherwise, why include the story. Assuming stories are not added mid print, if refinement is done correctly and the sprint goal is still missed then someone has messed around with the stories after they were promoted to the sprint.
As with a failed sprint, a sprint that is a failure must have the root cause of that failure analysed during the retrospective and dealt with appropriately.

What is a failed sprint?


Is cognitive science a concentration of psychology?

Question: Is cognitive science apart of psychology? If I major in psychology, will it be easy for me to be a cognitive scientist?
Comment: Yes, cognitive science was invented by cognitive psychologists.
Comment: @Brian I think you should read the answers below which are quite good and take a look at [this article](http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rit/geo/Miller.pdf) to understand what cognitive science is and how it emerged as a science.
Answer: It's the other way around: Psychology is a discipline within Cognitive Science, which includes Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, and possibly Philosophy of Mind.  Research work in Psychology presumably makes you a Cognitive Scientist.
Answer: Arnon's answer is right, but I thought it might help to explain why.
Cognitive Science is the study of minds. This can include human minds, other animal minds, and artificial minds. The method could be to study how agents with minds behave in experiments (psychology), to study the physiological properties of biological minds (neuroscience), to create and model synthetic minds (artificial intelligence), to theorize about properties of minds (philosophy), to study the cultures and history of agents with minds (anthropology), and/or to study particular, especially complicated, aspects of minds (linguistics).
Psychology is just one way of approaching the problem (which can tell us quite a bit about minds), but a broader perspective would be needed to get a complete picture of what minds are and how they work.
Answer: I agree with Arnon that cognitive science is, by most people's definition, multi-disciplinary. And one of those disciplines included is psychology.
However, if you were to attend a cognitive science conference or read a cognitive science journal, you would see that it mostly includes areas of psychology that broadly relate to cognition.
There are many sub-disciplines of psychology that would not readily identify with cognitive science. For example, clinical psychology, I/O psychology, most of social psychology, most of personality psychology, and so on.
Thus, you might want to think of cognitive science and psychology in terms of partially overlapping Venn Diagrams.
As a final note, we use the term "cognitive sciences" on this site in a very inclusive sense. It is unfortunate that there is no single word that easily captures all that psychology and cognitive science encompasses.


How to create complex graph/chart like these using illustrator?

Question:

is it possible to create complex graph like these in illustrator using the graph tool? what are the likely processes involve in making complex graph with nested datas like these in illustrator, while maintaining the accuracy of the datas? also what keyword i need to explore these graph tutorials on the internet because all i get is simple circular chart, couldn't find any relating complex charts as per attached here.
Comment: I was looking for a generator a while back and came by this https://rawgraphs.io/gallery/ - wouldn't like to try using illustrator
Answer: This should be only a comment, but it's too long.
Illustrator's graph tool converts your data only to those graphs which are in the format collection. If you need something finer, your options are:
1) Draw it. The accuracy is up to you and the image doesn't follow if the data changes. Some parts of the image can be drawn with the graph tool from data, if you are lucky, but all in all it's a manual drawing.
2) Program a script which reads the data from a file, calculates the needed shapes and places them. Rerun the script if you edit the data. Perfect control, but you must be a competent programmer who fully understands the math behind Illustrator's shapes. It's simply beyond the possiblities of visual design oriented Illustrator users.
3) Find a needle in a haystack. Get a service or graph generator program which visualizes just your data and its relations. You have already got one suggestion of it.
In theory someone can have generated a program which actually is an implemented super high level programming language. With it one defines the structure of his data and how the existing quantities and relations should be visualized. The result could well be a script for a common graphic program.
A lower level approach for the same is a data visualization tool library for a common programming language. Web search for it finds for example this: https://d3js.org  Unfortunately I do not have skills to utilize it, a programmer is needed.
Data visualization is an important area, it's discussed widely and it has got much serious attention. Here's a link to a chat which contains several resource links: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-most-popular-language-for-data-visualization
Answer: It appears that http://circos.ca/intro/general_data/ has an app which is used for displaying data in a particular visual manner, as shown in your examples.
Answer: If you can program, using Circos like MarkR mentioned above, is the best way to go. (I have a programming background and have used Circos, but I don't use it much.)
That said, I've been exploring using Illustrator to generate complex data visualizations, but not like those in the screenshot you included in your question. If you want those, you would have to generate them elsewhere, save as an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) text file, then import that file into Illustrator to do customizations, tweaks, etc.
Alternately, Adobe's (and Georgia Tech's) Web app Data Illustrator (http://data-illustrator.com) lets you create charts and save to SVG. You can probably generate "chord" charts, but not as complex as the ones in your screenshot.


How come we squish everything into one octave?

Question: If I play out the harmonic series on the piano, the notes are far apart over multiple octaves and I was wondering why we squish everything into one octave to create chords/scales?
Comment: Simply asking "How do people choose the pitches to make a musically useful scale" might be a really interesting question (if possibly a little broad). Starting with the questionable premise that it would make sense to make the pitches follow those of the harmonic series just seems to be a less clear way to ask that basic question.
Comment: This seems to be related: https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/67514/why-do-we-scale-shift-up-an-octave-in-the-overtone-series
Comment: @DavidK and https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/67531/how-come-we-dont-use-the-early-overtones-in-order-from-a-harmonic-series-to-crea/67534.  Seems to be theme of the week!
Answer:
Our music did not originate from the harmonic
series to which you are referring. People played what
sounded good and what was within their ability to play well. Subsequently, it was discovered that some musical systems - for example our western musical tradition using certain tuning conventions (not all musical systems throughout the world, and not all of our tuning conventions, except with a bit of fudging) had a satisfying scientific basis. There is no evidence to support the notion  that the math of the harmonic series came first, and music followed. On the contrary -people were making music long before it was discovered. See: Prevailing theories about discovery of harmonic intervals - and they were not about to change the way they made music because Pythagoras (or some other mathematician...) discovered the harmonic series.
Music which spanned many octaves would not sound good - it would
sound disjointed and unsatisfying. It would also be very difficult to
play. Even if we say that some systems were developed based on the discovery of the overtones series, that would only be after the chromatic octave was condensed and organized into its present form. Playing music and listening to music in the manner you are suggesting just doesn't work.

Bottom Line: Our taste and ears, and our ability to play our music are the determining factors, not a mathematical algorithm for building the chromatic octave using the harmonic series, discovered by a mathematician with musical curiosity.
Answer: I don't agree with your premise. Many songs have melodies that range over an octave. On the piano, you play a chord with your right hand, and that is all on the same octave (can you stretch your hand much more than that? I can't), but what is your left hand doing? Playing notes in a different octave. I could go on: choirs, symphonies, your favorite band all have ranges greater than one octave.
Comment: True, but each section plays within its own limited range of  a few octaves at most. All the chords and scales used are "squished" within their own context. _Many songs have melodies that range over an octave_ The harmonic sequence uses 12 octaves to build the chromatic scale, going from perfect 5th to perfect 5th until the cycle of 5ths is completed. (afterwards they are condensed into one contiguous chromatic octave) You will hard pressed to find a song that spans that range.
Comment: @Stinkfoot I would not call the circle of fifths a harmonic series. But you have a point that there is _some_ "squishing," even if it isn't "squished" all the way down to a single octave in all cases.
Comment: @DavidK - note that I did not say one octave only in my comment. The question as stated is talking about something else entirely, not a piece where the range for a particular section is two or three contiguous octaves.
Comment: @Stinkfoot Yes, and I think your comment makes more sense than the question with regard to how many octaves people actually use.
Answer: We don't. But notes in close harmony do work well together, probably better than a 1 in one octave, 3 in the next and 5 in the next to that. And do try singing that sort of sequence! A lot of instruments only have a three octave or so range anyway.
You mention scales. Can't imagine how they would be played if the notes weren't pretty close to each other, can you?
Answer: Notes in a scale are chosen such that the pitches of those notes (and their harmonic partials) have interesting relationships with each other.
It is entirely possible that some people might like a scale made of notes whose fundamental pitches matched the harmonic series - there's nothing wrong with that idea as one way to make a scale.
However, there are lots of ways to make a scale that allows interesting frequency relationships between notes. It simply isn't logical to think that would require the notes to directly follow the harmonic series, and indeed in the diatonic scale that Western music has adopted as the primary scale, they don't (even though there are some clear correspondences).
Answer: It's helpful to remember that we're not playing just fundamentals.  Every time we strike a key or blow a note, we get the fundamental and a whole set of overtones.  Psychoachoustically speaking, our ears are used to this and they capture all of these frequencies together as a pitch and a quality of some sort.
If we play notes from the harmonic series across the entire range of the piano, they sound disconnected.  They don't sound like a chord.  This is because our brain is smart.  It noticed that the set of overtones it heard did not line up well with what it learned things sound like over the last few million years.  The loudness of each harmonic isn't quite right for it to be a single source.  Thus, the ear quickly breaks the sound into multiple series of harmonics, and you get the disjoint sound.
When you play a chord where the notes are closer together, the loudnesses of the overtones are closer to what we learned things sound like millions of years ago.  We start to hear the sound as more of a single sound and less like a set of individual sounds.  Qualitatively, we find the notes of the chord form one unit that acts together.  When the notes are far apart, we don't get that qualitative feel.
Interestingly enough, throat singers do the exact opposite.  A throat singer starts with a very rich set of overtones (like what the human voice can create), and then carefully crafts their vocal tract to be resonant with one of the overtones.  When our ears hear this, they do not expect to see one resonant frequency sticking out over the top of what is otherwise a well behaved set of overtones.  The result is that it sounds like one is "singing two notes at once," because our ears decouple that odd overtone from the rest of the sound, treating it as though it's a separate sound source.
Answer: Only the low notes of the harmonic series are far apart. As they go higher, the notes of the harmonic series get closer and closer together. The fifth octave of the harmonic series already contains (approximately) all the notes of the chromatic scale.
So, I would say that squishing isn't the right word for what's going on. Instead, why do we use this fifth octave of the harmonic series instead of a lower (or higher) part?
Well, sometimes we do use the lower part. For example, bugle calls (like Taps and Reveille) use the second and third octaves of the harmonic series since those are the notes that a bugle can (easily) play. But perhaps these are not the most interesting songs.
Ultimately it does all come down to aesthetics, but there are possibly some mathematical reasons why the fifth octave is a good choice. If you care about harmonics, then you may also care about harmonics of harmonics (ie the circle of fifths). The diatonic fifth (the third harmonic and first non-octave harmonic) needs a diatonic fourth to get back to the octave. But the harmonic used for the diatonic fourth doesn't come until the 21st harmonic which is in the fifth octave.
If we insist on thinking of squishing, then scales are almost squished by definition. A scale is usually just what we call a set of notes all squished into one octave and then put in order.
For chords, the situation is different. We often think of a chord as existing in one octave (or two when stacking thirds) because there are prototypical instances of each note all within a single octave. But in practice, the situation is different. Consider instruments that actually play chords. A piano player playing two-handed chords will often span three octaves limited only by hand span and finger count. A guitar player will typically play two octave chords, limited by hand span and string count. When multiple performers play at the same time, things get even more spread out.
Answer: There's no "squishing" -- an "octave" is just the difference between one note and another note with double the frequency of the first note.  For example, the octave of A with frequency of 440Hz is another A with a frequency of 880Hz.
The word "octave" implies that the frequency range is divided into eight  divisions, but that is just an artifact of the way much of Western music has historically been organized.  There is nothing to prevent anyone from dividing that frequency range into any number of divisions, nor is there any rule that the divisions must be equal. (And other musical traditions, for instance Indian music, use different divisions).
Having said that, there are certain intervals that are generally perceived as having certain qualities (e.g., a "minor third" sounding "sad"), and Western music uses these qualities to convey emotion.
In the end, it's all about frequencies and math.
Last but not least, the practice of using "tempered" scales in Western music is relatively recent (e.g., Bach composed the "Well-Tempered Clavier" pieces to illustrate the use of the tempered scale).  For more on this see Why are there both sharps and flats?.


Is there a reliable and accurate profitability calculator?

Question: I've looked at the various profitably calculator sites and honestly I'm not sure how up to date they are. They don't seem very accurate. Is there one that's better than the others?
Comment: What makes you think they are inaccurate? The basic arithmetic involved hasn't changed, and any time-sensitive data being used (eg current market values) should be shown to you, so that you can see if they are accurate.
Comment: Will one of these calculators work for your purposes? If not, why? http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/485/how-can-i-compute-mining-profitability
Answer: All the calculators I have seen have been correct.
There are three typical sources of the confusion you are experiencing:
1. The calculator is NOT telling you what you will earn in the next 24 hours.
No, mining calculators cannot tell you exactly what you will earn from day to day. And they're not trying to.
If you had a dice calculator it would tell you that your average roll will be 3.5. You can roll a die 1 time, get a 6 and call bullshit because 6 is far from 3.5. But the calculator wasn't trying to tell you what your next roll will be. It cannot know the future. Neither can mining calculators.
What they are telling you is the average expected income with your hashrate mining at the given difficulty. Over the long term variance evens out, but something short like a single day has a lot of variance.
A common mistake among beginners is to try a few different mining pools for one day each and declare the one that paid the best as the most profitable pool. This is like buying one scratch ticket from three different lotteries and declaring one of the lotteries the best because you won on that ticket. This sort of thing makes absolutely no sense once you learn about variance.
2. Payouts lag behind mining work.
Another source of confusion is that pay from most pools lags behind the work you do. For example, many pools use PPLNS with shifts and pay for your work as long as your work is among the 10 latest shifts at the time when a block is found. If your work is eligible for pay (in the 10 latest shifts) for e.g. 48 hours, then it will take 48 hours before the work can no longer get paid more coins.
If you look at the pay after 2 of those 48 hours you are sure to be unhappy with how much you've been paid. This is like working a single day and then complaining to your boss that you didn't get paid, when your salary is being paid on a monthly basis. Note that 48 hours is just an example, this will vary from pool to pool.
3. Calculators don't include all the factors
This is a much smaller issue than the two others, but can still be useful to be aware of. There are many factors that affect your mining income, and most are ignored by calculators. I wrote about this here: BTC/hashes/second rates for various pools
Comment: Great answer. Expanding on #3: if it's altcoin mining the variance can be affected dramatically by multipools switching to match profitability, which in turn, can dramatically increase difficulty if the coin has a highly responsive KGW (Kimono Gravity Well) adjustment algorithm (as opposed to Bitcoin, which takes 2 weeks to adjust).


What is the purpose of ROM switcher mods in CDTV

Question: I've seen a lot of information on CDTV ROM switchers, but it is still unclear to me what is the actual purpose of it. As I understand it allows some compatibility with A500 games, but this disables CD and other system specific features. There are also mods which offer 3 KS chips option, but why?
Comment: Same as any Amiga - KS 3.1 as stable version for software requiring >= KS 2.0, and KS 1.3 for older software that won't run on KS >=2.0. For gaming, WHDLoad solves it way better.
Answer:
I've seen a lot of information on CDTV ROM switchers, but it is still unclear to me what is the actual purpose of it.

The CDTV is essentially an Amiga 500 sans keyboard and floppy but with CD and other additions. It uses an of the shelf Kickstart 1.3 ROM plus an extension ROM providing CD access, audio player and alike. But development didn't end with Kickstart 1.3 in 1988(?) but continued, so there is 2.0 in 1990 which as well works with the CDTV hardware. Newer, post 1990, Amiga applications may need functions provided with 2.0. An while simply exchanging the ROMs is a possible way, it disables the CDTV specific add-ons mentioned above. So the ability of switching freely forth and back seems like a good idea, doesn't it?

As I understand it allows some compatibility with A500 games, but this disables CD and other system specific features.

These are only disabled as long as there are other ROMs than the 1.3 version switched in. That's why it's switchable, so the 2.0 Amiga (which it essentially is) can be turned back into a 1.3 CDTV by the flip of a switch.
The reason lies within the extension CDTV ROMs. They hook their services into the 1.3 ROM system. Cool way to keep a 100% original system ... except, it wasn't done in an upward compatible way, so they simply don't work with a later (2.0) ROM.

There are also mods which offer 3 KS chips option, but why?

I assume you're referring to an option to have three Kickstart ROMs on the board? Well, 1.3 and 2.0, although being the most common, aren't the only ones. So a third ROM simply offers to hold another version. Although that's usually more relevant to later Amiga models, not so much the CDTV.
Another use, especially if the third is made to hold two more standard 8 bit EPROMs, is to add a custom patched version - like from today's developers.
Answer: The CDTV CD drive is non-standard. The interface is not IDE or SCSI, it requires a special driver that was built in to the CDTV ROM. The ROM consists of a standard Kickstart 1.3 image plus the additional CD-ROM support.
Unfortunately the CD-ROM support only works with Kickstart 1.3 and without reverse-engineering it there was no way to fix it for later versions, so it had to be disabled.
Additionally the CD-ROM support uses some memory for the driver and filesystem. Disabling the CD-ROM frees up some memory. The CDTV shipped with 1MB of RAM so for compatibility with software designed for an A500 expanded to 1MB it was sometimes helpful.


How to look / dress older?

Question: (I hope this is the appropriate place to ask.) I'm a 23 year old female, 5'2", and I look like I'm high school age or younger. But I am married and want people to think I'm an adult. I need new glasses and was hoping to get some that would make me look my age but I probably need more help than just glasses. I've heard that the best way to look older is to dress professionally, but that's just not practical for everyday. What are some tips to help me look my age?
Comment: "I've heard that the best way to look older is to dress professionally, but that's just not practical for everyday." This needs clarification. How do you dress currently? What do you do for a living? Why is "professional dress" impractical? What do you think professional dress means?
Comment: I feel like this question is off-topic, but I'll wait and see how it develops throughout the day
Comment: I wouldn't worry too much - give it 2/3 years, and you'll be worrying about looking older - with any luck, looking younger now might mean that carries on into your forties...
Comment: Just dress more sexy and you will look grown enough to take you seriously. And use some tricks with makeup, other girls can tell you what. But you should not worry about looking younger, it is a good think and you have to be proud of this
Answer: You need to crank up your observing dramatically. On your way to work/school/shopping, at work/school/shopping, in the stock photos that you see online and in articles, in any paper media you consume, in TV ads for floor cleaners or prescription meds or beer, look, really look at the people. Ask yourself:

does that person look roughly within 10 years of my age?
does that person look like a funloving high school student, or a serious adult who is married and definitely 23 or more?
from the context of the ad (furniture in the background, price of the item being sold) or article (is it about investments or a new pot law?) or what you can overhear of the subway/grocery store conversation, or know of the person if it's a real person in your life, are the people you see in the demographic you want to be perceived as?

(You may gain some information from the men, but women will probably be your prime target.)
Now start to take note of the appearance of the people who appear to you to be married, in their late twenties, professional, etc. This is the image you want to project. Depending on where you live and what income group you want to be perceived as (artsy does not look like lawyer) you will see different things. Earring size. Hair style. Makeup colours. Nail length and decoration. Sure, maybe some easy stuff like bare midriff or torn jeans, but more seriously how tight are the clothes? Are they layered? Do things "go together" or is it a pair of neutral pants and a top, a skirt and a top? How high are the heels? Is everything black? Taupe? Beige? Are there bold colours? Big prints? Chunky necklaces? Bracelets? Are the purses large or small? And sure, what do their glasses look like?
Finally, don't feel you need permission to wear certain things. I used to envy women who wore floppy straw hats in the summer, especially with loose flowing dresses. I wished I could do that. One day, I realized they don't check for a permit at the stores that sell floppy straw hats. I bought one, and wore it like I meant it. It worked - not one person laughed at me for my affectation. If you want to wear more serious or expensive clothes, you need no permission. Just go buy some, and see what happens when you wear them.
Answer: I would say try to dress more practical rather than professional to appear your age. I'm in the same demographic as you, and I've found that just swapping to professional attire that doesn't suit your environment comes across as pretending to be a grown up. Swap out faded or torn jeans for jeans in good condition with a slightly higher waist(won't ride down when you sit). Wear clothing that doesn't have large amounts of writing or graphics. I wear glasses but I go for a more minimalistic look rather than a statement look.
Basically, start dressing for how you live your life rather than how you think the world should see you, and you'll find that ironically this is the best way for the world to accurately perceive you as an adult.
Comment: Just as an aside, them high-waisted jeans are my language. (I'm pretty sure you didn't mean the 80's mom high-waist, but still).
Comment: You are correct, I did not mean 80s mom jeans (although those might also make you look older). There are thankfully pants out there that are neither 80s mom jeans nor the below the hip middle school jeans of the early 2000s.
Comment: _-sigh-_ perhaps one day 80s mom-jeans will come back. I can always dream. I still remember that stupid low-cut jeans commercial with the belly-button singing "I'm coming out", which was weird as hell.
Answer: The TV show What Not to Wear has covered this a number of times, often with smaller females who have this issue (some even were shopping in the kids department, but mostly dressing like they were still students).
If you can find those episodes online I think it would be a great reference in that Stacy and Clinton give the person various rules to follow when shopping, and they can be adapted to the situation and tastes of the individual.
Answer: Try doing different makeup tricks to make you look older. When I put on makeup the right way, I look 30 when I am 23. Also try to dress more professionally, for example instead of a t-shirt and jeans, wear a skirt. The longer the better for a skirt, but go for a loose skirt, not a tight one.

How to look / dress older?


Intuitive explanation of the inverse square power $\frac{1}{r^2}$ in Newton's law of gravity

Question: Is there an intuitive explanation why it is plausible that the gravitational force which acts between two point masses is proportional to the inverse square of the distance $r$ between the masses (and not only to the inverse of $r$)?
Comment: Possible duplicate: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/47084/2451
Comment: This is essentially the same question, with charge replaced by mass: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/32948/
Comment: In this context there is Bertrand's theorem: http://books.google.de/books?id=3XMSqU2Vo3EC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=bertrand+comptes+rendus+1873&source=bl&ots=eXabFPjn5x&sig=dOrnbhVtOXChZM79upaET5cNcwQ&hl=en&ei=2s0pTaSPFImo8QOE49SrAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=bertrand%20comptes%20rendus%201873&f=false, but I don't know if there is an intuitive proof for this (which would lead to another answer to your question)
Answer: Richard Feynman explains it wonderfully in his lectures on the "Character of Physical Law". You could have a look at this video.
One way to see it is that the inverse square law just is. There were experiments done to determine how one mass affects the other and then the result was that the force between them varies as the inverse square of the distance between them. But clearly that is neither intuitive nor obtained from "first principles". In other words, once we have the experimental data, who is there to explain it?
You can see that it has to be an inverse square law by symmetry. The other arguments for this question involve gravitons, but the argument works just as well even for fields.

From the image a general idea of the argument can be seen. The argument goes like so:
If you consider a point mass in space, and then claim that it has a "gravitational field" around it, then from the law of conservation of energy the energy of the field has to be conserved in all space.
But since the source of the field is a point mass, it is also clear that the field has to be spherically symmetric (since from every region around the point mass, the point mass looks the same). So if we consider a spherical region around the point and measure the total field passing through that surface (called the flux of the field) and then consider another spherical region with a larger radius and measure the field passing through that surface, the total field through both spherical surfaces must be equal.
But the surface area of the sphere goes up as $4\pi r^2$. Therefore for the flux through both spherical surfaces to be the same, the field has to go down as $1/r^2$.
Comment: I find this really fascinating, but do not quite understand. Can you say more about what energy we are conserving?
Answer: If you think of the gravitational force carried by particles like gravitons, the flux of these force-carriers would fall off like $1/r^2$, just like photons from a point source. And that is due to the fact that they are spread out over a sphere with area $4\pi r^2$.
Answer: Inverse-square laws are completely geometry-based.
Let us assume a point source. This point source may emit anything such as Gravity, Light, Sound, Radiation, etc. One thing to note in these point sources - They spread their influence equally in all directions (approaching infinity) without limit to their covered range.
For instance let us assume light. It emerges as spherical wave-fronts from this point source. Taking a slice off this sphere and when projected in a perspective view, we'd get a square matrix of order of $\text{your distance}$. If you take $2 m$, then it'd be in a $2\times 2$ matrix which has $4$ elements which basically takes the square. If we look - into with our goggles somewhat, we'd see that these spherical wave-fronts spread in the form of $\text{your distance}$ as their radii $r$.

We know that the actual source strength of gravity is $4\pi GM$ whereas the surface area traversed by the spheres is $4\pi r^2$ and it results in the gravitational field intensity $$I=\frac{GM}{r^2}$$
Answer: Two answers come to mind (I assume this explanation is to be provided to non-specialists and non-would-be-specialists, as there is intuitive in the question):

Argue by "heavy body and satellite problem" that other values make no sense (of course this can rule out $r^{-1}$ but not $r^{-1.9992}$). Data for comparison - how long is the Martian year (or year on Pluto).
Say that the body emits gravitons in all directions and the total flux of gravitons has to be preserved which implies $r^{-2}$.

The second "argument" gives -2 power, but also is an "proof" by a unverified conjecture. Nevertheless it requires no calculation, therefore qualifies for intuitive.
Answer: No, there is no intuitive explanation why the gravitational force which acts between two point masses is proportional to the inverse square of the distance $r$ between the masses. All geometrical reasonings involve surfaces, not the point-like bodies, so they are too speculative.
Comment: Why is proceeding from point-like bodies to surfaces is "too speculative"? At least in the framework of classical physics. Though, frankly speaking, I see no explanation for the square power in classics, being it geometrical or not. Nevertheless if there some general principal prohibiting transition from points to surfaces, I'd like to know it.
Comment: Points do not have surfaces (or their surfaces vanish) whereas the force does not depend on the actual surfaces, but on the distance.
Comment: I want to do something with it, could you please join the chat? http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/6805/discussion-between-vladimir-kalitvianski-and-yrogirg
Comment: What do you think is more flawed --- transition from points to surfaces or from the force between two bodies to a field?
Comment: Transition to a field. Field makes sense only as an "external" force in the equation of motion of another body.
Comment: There is definitely an explanation, and it is not speculative (-1). cf. The links in My comment to the question.


Inverse of dopamine reuptake inhibitor?

Question: The wikipedia article on the dopamine transporter gives examples of some drugs whose effects are mediated by the inhibition of the dopamine transporter, such as cocaine and amphetamines.  Are there any drugs or substances whose mechanism of action involves increasing the activity of the dopamine transporter, i.e., a "DAT releaser?"
Answer: It's important to note the difference in mechanism between cocaine and meth. While cocaine blocks reuptake, meth makes VMAT - vesicular monoamine transport - leaky and actually reverses the transportation of dopamine, so that instead of transporting dopamine into the axon terminal, it actually transports dopamine out as it leaks from the vesicle that carry it. This is what is meant when referring to 'reverse transport' of dopamine through DAT. Feel free to read this abstract and the sources it cites (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2631950/).
Regarding the possibility of a DAT agonist of sorts, looks like current research has identified some potential targets. One of which seems to be luteolin and its derivatives (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20971650). Current studies find new derivatives and test the EC50 to assess pharmacological efficacy.
Answer: Amphetamine isn't a DAT inhibitor. It actually causes exocytosis of dopamine vesicles. That is why cocaine is activity dependent as it's mechanism depends on presynaptic activity whereas amphetamine is activity independent.

Inverse of dopamine reuptake inhibitor?


Should mobile navigation be aligned to the left or right?

Question: I apologise if this question is a duplicate. On a quick browse I couldn't see anything referring to this. I've always aligned my navigation icon on mobile to the right. Mainly because I just assumed this aligns with most users mental model. However, there are quite a few examples of navigation being on the left? Is either correct or one better than the other?
Comment: To add some thoughts to this question, I notice that for many responsive web design layouts, mobile webs also have a lot of navigation placed at the top of the page. So when you are talking about mobile navigation, it is good to consider whether it is in the context of apps or mobile web pages.
Comment: Possible dupe: http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/31031/how-to-choose-the-better-placement-for-sidebar-left-or-right
Answer: In left-to-right languages people are used to reading from the left, and so objects on the left hand side get more attention than those on the right (all things being equal of course).  Menus and navigation have traditionally been on the left, but many sites choose to put them on the right so that the content can have focus (on the left).
So even on PC's there is no clear side which navigation should be on.

Unlike when designing for a pc, for touch devices you have to also take a person's hand into account. Given that most people are right handed, and are more than likely going to be using their right hand more than their left, there is an argument for having right handed navigation.  Mainly because it is easier to reach, and you then don't have a hand blocking the screen which you would have if you.
However, mobile navigation is almost always on the left hand side.  So moving it to the right is likely to be seen as confusing.  Hence I would usually have navigation on the left to maintain consistency.

In the end, there isn't any better side for all applications.  You need to evaluate your goals and make a decision based on your situation.  However, especially if you are breaking the norm, you should test this with your users to be sure.
Answer: Most(if not all) of the navigation menus on mobile applications are on the left hand side.
http://www.mobile-patterns.com/custom-navigation and http://inspired-ui.com/tagged/navigation
The reason being, most people will be reading from left->right and hence the first thing they notice is on the left side. Though, on a mobile this argument does not hold that much weight.
I would assume it is just a carry forward from the web design. Since, there you also had the benefit of the visibility of the menu; when kept it on the left side, the menu will always be visible no matter what the window size is.
Answer: From a design standpoint - So long as you don't align centre (out of lazyness instead of intent) and you're consistent, I'm not sure it matters.
Most design manuals will agree - Left align is tradition, right align is attention-grabbing.
Alignment is a fundamental aspect of graphic design. Get it wrong, and nothing else works. Get it right? Your design will usually look decent.
Comment: Can you give some more reasoning as to why? It just reads like your subjective opinion. Are you basing this answer on anything in particular? (Observations, research, experience...?)
Comment: Alignment is a pretty fundamental issue with graphic design. Consistency, balance and visual space all proceed from layout - and layout is nothing without selecting the appropriate alignment.
Answer: I've recently started putting mobilized navigation on the right hand side for this very reason. A few nights ago I was using Pinterest, among other sites, and I could not hit the menu toggle at the top left the way I was holding the phone. It's not the first time I've made the awkward movement with my thumb to try and reach it, but the first time I was so tired that I tried it multiple times and got annoyed :)
For some of the mobile sites we build, this isn't too big of an issue anyways - the menu toggle area actually stretches the width of the page. In some cases, our clients want to include other icons on the row and in this case, I'm going to start recommending right aligned menu toggles.
I think this is a gray area right now, most sites have it one location - but that location makes the least amount of sense. I feel in this situation it's more than okay to go against the grain.
Answer: If there is only one navigation for your app then it is better to align it to left because usually when you do your eyes automatically gives it more focus than usual. A good example for this would be Google+, Gmail and many other good apps like Mailbox and Pinterest where the navigation comes into focus from left. Navigations kept on the right often get missed from what I have seen.
If on the other hand your app is having some extremely important elements which you would like to show the users upfront and using which users will interact with the app mainly then it is better to keep it on the top or on the bottom. If it's a feed kind of an app then keeping it on top will obstruct the view so if there's lot of information overflow then keep it to the bottom otherwise if it's something used for switching view then keep it on the top.


How can I make a footprint for a tent?

Question: I recently got a Marmot Aeros 3P tent for Christmas, but haven't been able to find anyone currently selling the footprint that goes with it. So how could I go about making one?
Answer: From my experience there are two good ways to do this depending on the weather conditions you expect to encounter.
Place waterproof tarp outside tent
Good for rain conditions or where rocks and debris can damage the tent floor.

Purchase a good quality waterproof tarp slightly larger than tent footprint dimensions.
When setting up the tent

Fold edges into the wall dimensions (folded edge under not over the tarp.)
Make sure no edges extend beyond the rain fly

Place rain fly on the tent.
Stake out the tent as normal.

Place waterproof tarp inside tent
Good for snow conditions

Purchase a good quality waterproof tarp slightly larger than tent footprint dimensions.
Set up tent, including rain fly, and stake out.
Place tarp in the tent, and fold edges to wall dimensions (fold so that edge is over, not under the tarp)

The reason for the difference is that no matter how hard you try, in all but bitter cold conditions you will have some melting of the snow under your tent. This invariably gets onto the tarp surface and makes the tent floor wet, or icy.
I have never purchased an aftermarket tent floor, because they are overpriced and can be easily made following the steps above.
If you are ambitious you can create a custom floor by cutting, and melting the tarp edges. Then re-grommeting the tarp so that it can be independently staked to the ground. This I have found is usually unnecessary for all but the most fickle travelers.
Best of luck out there.
Comment: +1 once I get more votes. Good note about melting edges of tarp. If you just cut most tarps, they will fray and unravel.
Answer: Perhaps this is too naïve a solution, but I would take a tarp, lay the tent out on top of it, trace the outline with a sharpie, and cut on the outline you just drew.
Comment: Visqueen plastic sheet from a lumber yard works well.
Answer: Take a regular rectangular tarp, lay it out such that it is as close to the tent's size as possible.
Then take any amount of extra that is on the UPHILL SIDE, and fold UNDER THE TARP any excess.  Any water that comes downhill is then channeled underneath the groundcloth.
Answer: Get your material (tarp, plastic, whatever you choose) out and set your tent up on top of it, with poles.
Draw about 3" around the outside of your tent.  Trace circles around where the poles touch.
Cut on the dotted line.
Buy and install grommets on the circles http://www.metalgrommets.com/prod_gromwash.html, so that your poles can drop into them.
Fold over your edges about 1/2", stitch with a sewing machine, and final seal with a permanent seal tape.
(3" is actually a little wide, but when doing this sort of thing you always cut just a bit larger than you need to in case you make a mistake.)

How can I make a footprint for a tent?


Can I patent something similiar to an existing us patent in a different country?

Question: Me and my friends came up with an idea, and we're going through with it.
Does a US patent similiar to our idea affect us if we're filing it in a different country?
Answer: YES it will affect your application. In what extent is matter of analysis and claims you are filing.
NO Patent :- If the subject matter was published in any publicly accessible document anywhere in the world (journal; patent; patent application; news etc.) prior to the patent applicant filing.
NO Patent :- If subject matter was publicly known in united states, but not necessarily patented or published, prior to the patent applicant filing.
Note:-There are certain rules which allow a person to file and get patent if disclosure is by inventor itself under certain special circumstances and time limits. but it certainly effect the international filings and grant.
Comment: Will also highly depend on the rules regarding prior art in the country(ies) in which you are filing.
Answer: Yes, it will most likely affect you. Most other countries worth the trouble and cost of obtaining a patent in have laws in place that ban patents that are either directly disclosed or made obvious by prior art in any place. Remember, the PCT (patent cooperation treaty) is joined by many larger nations, and they are bringing their laws more into accord with it over time. The AIA (first-to-file, etc.) in the US was primarily a result of various patent treaties we've signed.
If a US patent exists that either directly discloses your idea or makes it obvious to a person skilled in the art (i.e. someone who is reasonably competent in the industry/field of your idea) then it will most likely ban your idea from being patented in most other countries. There are some countries that tend to ignore prior art, just as there are some countries that grant you a patent without really examining your application, and thoroughly examine your application only if your patent is actually challenged.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you can't market your idea. A patent only bans marketing in the country patented in and if it is actually claimed in the patent.


Loading custom dojo and Esri

Question: We have to develop an application which will have lot of rich ui along with a map. For the map, I am using the arcgis javascript api which includes dojo. For UI components other than the map, I want to use a copy of dojo which I will host locally. How can I load both of these?
   I read this blog esri dojo, but this works with api 1.6, and I am using 3.6.
Comment: If you load the local dojo first, I guess ArcGIS API will bypass loading its own. You can also use the [compact build](https://developers.arcgis.com/en/javascript/jshelp/inside_compactbuild.html) of the ArcGIS JS API, which only includes a small subset of dojo.
Comment: No , it does not
Answer: To load your custom UI tools along with ESRI's version of Dojo, you'll need to add the name and location of your custom package to the dojoConfig object in the script. Just before you load ESRI's JavaScript API in the head of document, set your dojoConfig similar to the following

Then, later, you can call it in a require or define statement.
require(["customUI/DrawingTool", "esri/map", "dojo/ready"],
  function (DrawingTool, Map, ready) {
    ready(function () {
       var map = new Map("mapdiv", {});
       var myDrawingTool = new DrawingTool({ map: map});
       // do whatever with it.
    });
  }
);

Here's some reading to help you set it up properly:

Defining Modules in Dojo (1.8)
Loading custom modules while using Dojo CDN (via StackOverflow)
How does package location work in Dojo (via StackOverflow)
Comment: thanks for suggestion , i will give it try today and  update on the same , however by ur answere  u mean i can load DOJO 1.7 or dojo1.9 along with ESRI right?
Comment: It might be possible to load an older (or newer) version of Dojo, but be warned that esri's dojo-based components may break if you use a different version. If you want to use Dojo 1.7, you might look into v3.2 of the ArcGIS Javascript API. That's the latest version running on that version of Dojo
Answer: changes to Dojo's loader in more recent versions of their API have made loading multiple versions and remapping namespaces substantially more difficult.
what exactly do you need to use that isn't included with Dojo 1.8.3 (packaged with JS API 3.6?)
Comment: I want to use DOJO 1.7 but not DOJO 1.8.3 since it is not approved in my company
Comment: Why is ESRI breaking when i load it for my application , i always get this.navigationManager is undefined in IE and mozilla and 'disableNavigation' of undefined

Loading custom dojo and Esri


Problem with LFE channel in mixing

Question: I have question about 5.1 . Is this right that we shouldnt have any soundeffects on LFE channel and all the sound effects Need to be sent to that channel?(in protools)
Comment: Welcome to sound.SE! This question is a bit flat – if technique _X_ can be done at all, then there will usually some particular situation where it is in fact useful (even if they're rare). A better question would be, what can be done with sounds on an LFE channel, and what are _problems_ that make this (perhaps usually!) a bad deal. — For another thing: "sound effect" is a bit of an ambiguous term. I suppose you mean a _sound event_ that's inserted as an effect into a film, but in other branches of sound production, "soundeffect" would rather be interpreted as "FX plugin".
Answer: Most (all?) use the LFE send on whatever panner they are using for ProTools.  Either the built in panner, waves, spanner etc all have a LFE send that allows you to send the amount you want to the LFE.  If you only wanted a signal sent to the LFE then you could assign it to the LFE using a sub buss but depending on how and if your encoding your final mix the LFE channel could be dropped.

Problem with LFE channel in mixing


Trello email notification

Question: I'd like to send Evernote reminders from a Card. Is there a way to customize the email template used in notifications (ie: set the subject to something different from 'Trello Notification'), so that Evernote can assign the Card in the appropriate Notebook?
Answer: Sorry, no, Trello doesn't offer customizable emails. We are working on an API, however, which would allow you to integrate with Evernote.

Trello email notification


Is it possible to install Ubuntu through network?

Question: I would like to install Ubuntu  for almost 120 users. But it's very difficult in using USB and drives.
Any suggestions?
Answer: You can install one Ubuntu system (typically an Ubuntu Server system, but it does not have to be), and then use it as a server to PXE boot and install the others. The BIOSes on the clients (where you want to install Ubuntu) must support PXE (i.e., network boot) for this to work. But most BIOSes do, these days.
You should be able to do it with a non-Ubuntu system as the host, too, if you already have that set up and you know how to configure the necessary servers on your non-Ubuntu system.

The PXEInstallServer Ubuntu help wiki article explains how to set up an Ubuntu system as your PXE server, and how to install Ubuntu on other systems from it. It would be hard to summarize the main points--the details are very important. So here's the whole thing (with minor formatting and punctuation changes):

Introduction
This will guide you through running an Ubuntu server as PXE install
  server. You'll need to run a DHCP server on your network, not
  necessarily this server but you do need one.
Installing needed packages
You'll need to install the following packages: inetutils-inetd
  (previously netkit-inetd), tftpd-hpa (see
  InstallingSoftware).

For Ubuntu 10.04, there is a bug with inetutils-inetd. It only listens on IPv6, and not on IPv4. As a quick workaround, you can use
  openbsd-inetd instead.

If this is also going to be your DHCP server, install dhcp server
  contained in the follwing package: dhcp3-server (see
  InstallingSoftware).
Configure tftpd-hpa
You'll need to tell tftpd-hpa to start its daemon (which it doesn't by
  default). To do this, edit the /etc/default/tftpd-hpa file, and make
  sure that it looks something like this:
#Defaults for tftpd-hpa
RUN_DAEMON="yes"
OPTIONS="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"

Then, run the startup script to actually start the daemon:
/etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa restart

Configure dhcpd
If your pxe server is also your dhcp server, you'll need something
  like this in /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
        range 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.200;
        filename "pxelinux.0";
}

If you have an existing dhcp server, you should point it to your pxe
  server by doing something like the following:
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    <other config here>
    filename "pxelinux.0";
    next-server <pxe host>;
}

Be sure to restart your dhcp server so that the changes take effect:
sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart

Configure tftpd-hpa
tftpd-hpa is called from inetd. The options passed to tftpd-hpa
  when it starts are thus found in /etc/inetd.conf
The defaults are fine for us, your /etc/inetd.conf should have an
  entry like this:
tftp    dgram   udp    wait    root    /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot

(Although you may need to edit this file and replace udp with
  udp4, as tftpd-hpa seems to expect an IPv6 address now.)
Now we'll copy the needed files from the Ubuntu CD:
sudo cp -r /media/cdrom/install/netboot/* /var/lib/tftpboot/

If your dhcp server issues correct network info and your pxe clients
  will have network access, then at this point you will be able to do an
  Ubuntu install using internet repositories.
I want to go a little further however and install everything from the
  install server as well as customise some of the packages to install.
Install apache
Currently nfs installs aren't well supported (please correct me if I'm
  wrong) so we'll install over http. For that we need a webserver on our
  install server too: install the following package: apache (see
  InstallingSoftware).
Copying Ubuntu files
Create an ubuntu directory under your freshly installed apache's
  document root and copy all of the contents of the Ubuntu Alternate CD
  to that directory:
mkdir /var/www/ubuntu
cp -r /media/cdrom/* /var/www/ubuntu/

Customising the install
There is a package called system-config-kickstart which is a GUI
  frontend to creating kickstart files. The kickstart file tells the
  installer where to get its packages from, what to install and a number
  of other useful settings. See KickstartCompatibility for more
  info.
This package does not have to be installed on your install server, it
  can be on a convenient Ubuntu desktop somewhere.
Create a custom ks.cfg with system-config-kickstart, be sure to
  specify HTTP under "Installation Method". Provide the IP of you
  install server and make the HTTP Directory /ubuntu/. Save the file
  and copy it to your install server under /var/www/html/.
A very minimalist `ks.cfg file which only uses the installation files
  on the install server and asks for all other questions might look like
  this:
install
url --url http://192.168.0.1/ubuntu/

Use your ks.cfg
In order for your network Ubuntu install to use your kickstart file,
  you have to tell it where to find it. Edit
  /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default and add
  ks=http://<installserver>/ks.cfg to the append line. It should then
  look something like this (note that the append line is one line):
label linux
        kernel ubuntu-installer/i386/linux
        append ks=http://192.168.0.1/ks.cfg vga=normal initrd=ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=16432

root=/dev/rd/0 rw  --
In Jaunty [and presumably later releases, including any release
  you're likely using]1 the default file has been broken
  up into includes. The append line can be found in
  /ubuntu-installer/i386/boot-screens/text.cfg:
label install
        menu label ^Install (from my http server)
        menu default
        kernel ubuntu-installer/i386/linux
        append ks=http://192.168.0.1/ks.cfg vga=normal initrd=ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz -- quiet

Boot and install
You should now be able to boot another pc on the lan over the network
  and have it install Ubuntu automagically. :) You can vary the tftp and
  http install points to have multiple versions of Ubuntu available to
  install on your network.
Using the CD (or .iso) directly
You can also achieve the above without actually copying any files
  anywhere. You can mount the CD (or the .iso) and then do additional
  mounts with the --bind option. The advantage is that you can upgrade
  the CD (or the .iso) without needing to update the install server
  files.
For example, after mounting the CD (or the .iso) to /media/cdrom/,
  you can mount the ubuntu files to the web directory:
mount --bind /media/cdrom/ /var/www/ubuntu/

Similarly, you can do the same with the tftproot:
mount --bind /media/cdrom/install/netboot/ /var/lib/tftpboot/

If you were to create a pxelinux.cfg directory with an appropriate
  default file, you can mount that over the top of the mounted CD, so
  that the tftp server gives out your pxelinux.cfg/default file. For
  example, a pxelinux.cfg directory in ~/pxelinux.cfg could be
  mounted like this:
mount --bind ~/pxelinux.cfg /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg

(Note that in the above example, the actual mount point of the
  directory would end up as
  /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/pxelinux.cfg because the
  pxelinux.cfg is a symlink on the CD (or .iso)).

— PXEInstallServer, with slight formatting, punctuation, and capitalization changes, mainly to accomodate the Ask Ubuntu Format.
That article is from the Ubuntu documentation wiki. It was written by "Contributors to the Ubuntu documentation wiki" and is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, which allows inclusion here, with proper attribution.
1[Bracketed italicized text] is not from the original; it is my commentary.

Note the difference between this method and the method Mitch suggested. That method involves booting from a CD/DVD or USB flash drive, which then installs the system over a network. By default this network is the Internet; for that method to be reasonable for installing to hundreds of machines on a network, you would probably want to create and host an Ubuntu repository on your network, and point your installations to that.
The effort and infrastructure necessary to do that is comparable to what would be necessary to PXE boot the machines as described above. So while that way might meet your needs, I'd encourage you to consider PXE booting if you really need to install without "physical media."
Comment: Would I need to change any settings in my router?
Answer: You can do that by using the net install method starting an installation of Ubuntu over the network. described at Netboot Install
Network installer

The network installer lets you install Ubuntu over the network. This
  is useful, for example, if you have an old machine with a non-bootable
  CD-ROM or a computer that can't run the graphical interface-based
  installer, either because they don't meet the minimum requirements for
  the live CD/DVD or because they require extra configuration before the
  graphical desktop can be used, or if you want to install Ubuntu on a
  large number of computers at once.Ubuntu

Download the network installer for 12.04 LTS
Download the network installer for 13.04
Answer: There are so many way to accomplish this.
1 - Netboot

You must modify the host names and IP addresses in this HOWTO for your
  own setup. The principles described here are applicable to other DHCP
  and TFTP servers than those described below; using alternate server
  software is left as an exercise for the reader.
For instructions on how to use a windows computer as the TFTP and DHCP
  server, head to Installation/WindowsServerNetboot.
This HOWTO will get you as far as running the installer; if you want
  to perform automated or unattended installs of Ubuntu, see
  Installation/LocalNet.

2 - LocalNet

This installation method utilizes DHCP/BOOTP, TFTP, and FTP/HTTP to
  obtain the installation sources. The installer itself is made up of a
  Linux kernel and an initrd. These files are transferred via the
  DHCP/TFTP boot process.
The remainder of the installation sources can be transferred via FTP
  or HTTP. If the target machine has internet access these sources could
  be pulled directly from an Ubuntu mirror. Alternatively, you could
  download one of the installation ISO's, loop-back mount them, and
  serve them with a local HTTP/FTP server.

3 - NetworkConsole

Booting from a CD (could be TFTP or similar too) and installing the
  system over SSH.

4 - Quick Install over SSH

A quick guide for installing Hardy Ubuntu 12.04 on a dedicated server
  over ssh.

Take a look the full documentation of Server and network installations
Answer: What worked for me when installing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS was based on a guide by Isabel Castello, which seems based on the LocalNet guide from the Ubuntu wiki, but was much more readable and understandable to me.
Prerequisites
You must be on a network with 3 nodes:

A basic DHCP router.
The target server, where you want to install Ubuntu. It must be connected to the router with a cable (not WiFi). And obviously have support for network booting in BIOS.
A source server, which will serve initial installation files & services. This guide assumes it's also Ubuntu; other OSes are surely possible too, but commands would obviously be different.

Steps

Make sure to enable Network Boot in target's BIOS.
Entering BIOS is often done by pressing or holding Del or F2 when the machine boots. Alternatively, pressing F12 often allows altering the boot sequence in some vendor-specific way, which may help.
Find out the following values:
(You may want to browse/change the DHCP settings on the router to find out some of those. Also, if you manage to enter the Network Boot stage when booting the target machine, it will probably show at least the MAC address, so you can note it down.)

the target's MAC address — property of its network card,
the target's IP address — assigned to it by the router,
the gateway IP — in other words, IP of the router,
the subnet/network mask — usually found in source's and/or router's network settings.

Install and configure tftp on the source host:
$ sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa
$ grep TFTP_DIRECTORY /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/var/lib/tftpboot"
$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/bionic-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz
$ sudo tar xzvf netboot.tar.gz -C /var/lib/tftpboot/
$ rm netboot.tar.gz

If the grep above shows a different path, adjust the values in commands listed in this and next step accordingly.
Install, configure, and run bootp, also on the source host:
Note: replace $TARGET_MAC etc. values with appropriate values collected in step 2. above.
The $TARGET_MAC address should be with colons, e.g.: 00:00:39:2B:54:B5, and $SUBNET_MASK dotted, e.g. 255.255.255.0.
$ sudo apt-get install bootp
$ vim ./bootptab
client: ha="$TARGET_MAC": ip=$TARGET_IP: gw=$GATEWAY_IP: sm=$SUBNET_MASK: td=/: hd=/: bf=pxelinux.0
$ sudo bootpd -d 4 -c /var/lib/tftpboot -s $PWD/bootptab

Reboot the target machine, while ensuring the Network Boot feature is enabled (press F12 if needed, or nothing, or whatever else your BIOS requires).
A text-based interactive Ubuntu 18.04 installer should start now on the target machine. Continue as if installing Ubuntu normally.
Extra: for safety, after finishing the install, you should make sure to toggle the Network Boot feature in target's BIOS back to disabled.

Hope this helps!


Can my former manager ask about the details of the job when she's called as a reference?

Question: I have quit my job as I wanted to go back to studying but my circumstances changed and so I've started looking for a full time job. I will have an interview soon so I wanted to give my former manager as a reference. But can she ask details like whether the job is full-time or part-time? If she discovers that it's a full-time position she might think I lied about my reason for leaving. Would she even ask and are hiring managers allowed to give out the details about the job I'm applying for?
Comment: One small note: you don't ever supply your references before an actual person (not an application form) asks you for them. You shouldn't ever have to provide before you've had one or more interviews. You also don't add "references available upon request" to your resume, it's assumed that you'll provide them.
Comment: @KentAnderson I'm not aware of any country where it would be illegal to share this type of information. This is a question about the interview process, not a legal one. While I understand why people like the OP who are unfamiliar with reference checks would think there is some sort of privacy issue, that's really not how this works. When you provide someone as a reference it's standard practice that that person would be told details of the job during a reference check.
Comment: You should at least tag your question with your country, as there may be local privacy laws that govern what can be shared among employers. Without such a tag, your question is very difficult to answer definitively, and even then, is likely to be closed as off-topic since this forum is not for legal questions.
Comment: @Lilienthal I agree, and I cannot think of any place I've heard of where it would not be permitted. However, I have thought that before, and someone in (usually) Europe often proves me wrong.
Comment: @KentAnderson True enough. While I can only speak from experience for a small section of Europe, I believe that this situation is specific enough to avoid having to consider privacy laws. "*When you call the reference that your candidate told you to call to find out if he's the right person for this job, don't tell him about the job*" is not something I'd ever want to tell a manager. But come to think of it, some of the laws in countries around here have stunned me before so I can't even rule it out.
Comment: Another small note:  you don't ever supply reference X before you have asked X is (s)he wants to be a reference
Answer: Yes, when a reference is called by a hiring manager for an in-depth conversation (as opposed to just confirming employment), it's perfectly fine and normal for the reference to ask a few questions about the job. Good reference checkers will actually explain the role that you're being considered for at the start of such a conversation. They want to know if your reference, which is normally a former manager, thinks you will be a good fit for that role.
Additionally, it's also standard and in my opinion obligatory to give your references a heads-up when you provide their contact details to a hiring manager. You'd tell them that they might receive a call from someone at Company X about Position Y. Not giving them that advance warning is rather discourteous. Former managers can also give you a stronger reference if they get to think about your particular strengths for a certain job in advance instead of being put on the spot.
So your issue is that your former manager will discover that you're looking for full-time employment after initially leaving to resume your studies. Assuming that you had a good relationship with her, you should just explain what happened and that you're now looking for full-time employment. Trying to hide this would be strange and could strain your professional relationship.
Remember: plans and circumstances change. Unless there's some crucial information that you're leaving out, I think it's highly unlikely that your former manager will resent you for changing your plans and resuming your career. If anything I'd imagine that she'd be sorry to hear that you were forced to abandon your plans to finish your studies.
If your former manager was happy with your work, it's possible that she might offer you your old job back. If that doesn't fit with your long-term goals for whatever reason (bad fit, low salary, no prospects for growth, ...), just thank her for the offer and give a suitable excuse. That can be anything: looking for work in a different industry or location, wanting to work with another technology, searching for a new challenge and so on.
Answer:
But can she ask details like whether the job is full-time or
  part-time?

Yes.
A reference check is usually a conversation. During that conversation, either party can ask or say anything they like.
When I have provided references for former co-workers, I end up knowing a lot about their potential new employer. They always tell me the position that will be filled by the applicant.

If she discovers that it's a full-time position she might think I lied
  about my reason for leaving. Would she even ask and are hiring
  managers allowed to give out the details about the job I'm applying
  for?

This leads me to believe that you haven't already asked your former manager that you would be using her as a reference. That is a huge mistake!
Whenever you use someone as a reference - ask their permission first, because you want to make sure you choose people who will give you a great reference.
A surprised reference may not be ready to convey your best side to your new employer. A surprised reference may become angry, think you lied, and give less-than-flattering responses to questions being asked.
You would be far better served to ask your manager ahead of time, prepare her for who will be calling, and try to lay the foundation for a great reference.
Anything else is far too risky.
Answer: When asking your former boss for a reference (you were going to ask, weren't you?), let him know that you've had a change of circumstances and that you're actually taking a full-time position. It's not the crime, it's the cover-up that gets you.
It would certainly be a bit odd to question the person calling for a reference, but your boss may ask simply to better understand how to answer questions. I can't imagine any situation where a person would be able to call for a reference, and then NOT be able to say the nature of the position (but maybe that's why I'm not a licensed attorney). If it's divulging personal information to say the position is full-time, certainly it's divulging information to say there's a position in the first place, but obviously that's the reason for the call. But either way, you should be open up front, because the information could always get back to him anyway, even after the interview.  It is a small world.


What is the difference in meaning between "cost" and "price"?

Question: When should we use cost and when price? Is there any difference between these words?
Comment: In retail system, we also have *cost price* :P
Answer: The short answer: when used as a noun, the "price" is the amount charged for something, and the "cost" is the amount paid for something.
When a person is discussing buying something at retail, the most common noun used for the amount charged by the seller is "price."

I wanted to buy a white cotton jumpsuit, but the price was too high, so I didn't.

When used as a noun, "cost" refers specifically to the amount paid by someone for something. It is most often used in an accounting or business context.

Our cost per item is three dollars and our gross revenue per item is sixty dollars. That's a fifty-seven dollar profit on each jumpsuit sold!

It is not exactly wrong to use "cost" as a noun in the same way you would "price":

I wanted to buy a white cotton jumpsuit, but the cost was too high.

However, this is not as idiomatic, at least in American English; it sounds a bit melodramatic. You would be more likely to use "cost" as a noun where it is understood that you are discussing the impact on your finances, rather than the amount the store asked for the item:

Sure, it was expensive, but the cost isn't what's important: it's how the jumpsuit makes you feel.

Confusingly, you can use "cost" as a verb to describe the amount charged for an item:

That's a lovely jumpsuit; how much does it cost?

"Price" as a verb is used only for the act of setting a price:

Why would you price these jumpsuits so high? We poor students need jumpsuits, too!
Comment: This is a good answer. I'd like to add that the two words can be used when speaking of something that isn't monetary. For example, a general might say, "We won the battle, but at a tremendous cost," or, "We won the battle, but at a steep price." People might also talk about, say, the [_cost of integrity_](http://www.marybiever.com/the-cost-and-value-of-integrity/), or the _price of freedom_.
Answer: "Cost" refers to an expense, a hole in your pocket, or a liability for meeting a business goal for item being referred to. " Price" is objectively viewed money equivalent tagged for goods.
Answer: When you purchase an item, you pay the "price", that is the amount of money that the seller receives. However, you may have additional expenses, like taxes, payment for transport, payment for having the item installed. All these add up to the "cost". Or ordering things online: Cost = Price + Packaging + Postage.

What is the difference in meaning between “cost” and “price”?


Route-Map vs ACL for Cisco NAT

Question: Is there pros and cons of using route-maps vs access-lists for network address translation on a cisco router?
Answer: A quick bit of Googling found this article - looks like the route-map implementation provides per-flow NAT entries, rather than per-destination. In cases where you have lots of NATted traffic between the same two end points, this might be helpful in troubleshooting what is going wrong with a particular flow.
Route-maps also allow you to perform policy-based routing with NAT using the 'set ip next-hop' command within the route-map.
I've never looked into the route-map implementation, but one thing I would be interested in finding out is the relative throughput of the two implementations - I'd particularly expect that use of 'set ip next-hop' would have an impact on performance.
Answer: AFAIK, route-maps can match against extended access lists, whereas "ip nat inside source list" supports standard access lists only.

Route-Map vs ACL for Cisco NAT


What (if any) is the shortest evolutionary process observed by humans?

Question: So when I think of evolutionary processes, I think of it taking millions of years to happen. Like how humans evolved from monkeys or birds evolved from dinosaurs (I know that is super-duper simplified). Or how humans have parts that we don't need or use (the appendix, for example), but we don't have any records of a time when it was. But I wonder if there have been any evolutionary processes that happened on a human timescale or if we have evidence of something evolving in, say, thousands of years instead of millions? I think this would be interesting to learn about.
Comment: All species are evolving with every generation. Check out Remi.b's favorite site https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php for some basics on evolution.
Comment: @BryanKrause `Remi.b's favorite site` $\ddot \smile$. I often refer to this site following Corvus advice [here](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/34154/very-introductory-online-source-of-information-in-evolutionary-biology/34155#34155)
Comment: Haha that's nice, I hadn't seen that Q&A before. I'm more familiar with your use of the advice you got there than the original advice itself I suppose. :)
Answer: Definition of evolution
The whole problem boils down to the definition of the term "evolution". Typically, evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency over time. See wikipedia > allele if needed.
Answer with definition "evolution = change in allele frequency over time"
Using this definition, any event of death or birth is an evolutionary event. As such, in the human species, there are about 6 evolutionary events per second! This number will vary a lot among species / lineage of course.
Do you want to consider another definition?
If you are willing to use another definition, I am happy to investigate how common are events matching this definition. Please make sure to clearly define the term so as to leave out possibility for subjective appreciation. If you need inspiration for definitions, you might want to have a look at this post.
Sidenote: Evolutionary experiments
You might be interest in evolutionary experiments. An evolutionary experiment consists at putting individuals in a lab, let them breed under some circumstances and let them evolve. Of course, doing such experiment with elephants would be pointless as the generation time is so long. Common species that we use for such experiments include E.coli, S. cervisae (yeast) and D. melanogaster (fruit fly). Some of these experiments can be as short as a few days while others have been running for decades.
Somewhat related posts

How come most animals never seem to evolve over millenia?
Evolutionary chronology - if any, which species have evolved in the last 100 years
Why don't we keep evolving until we are super-human?

For a very introductive source of information in evolutionary biology, you can have a look at the website that @BryanKrause recommended: evo101
Answer: How are you defining "evolutionary event"?  You can do a lab experiment to generate antibiotic-resistant bacteria from antibiotic-sensitive parents strains in a few days or weeks, I think.
Humans drive the dodo to extinction over the course of a few centuries.
In Lake Victoria:  https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/27/science/lake-victoria-s-lightning-fast-origin-of-species.html

Now an international team of researchers, using remote sensing to
  probe the sediments at the lake's bottom, have found evidence that
  what is now Lake Victoria was a dry, grassy plain just 12,000 years
  ago. For evolutionary biologists, the implications are enormous. The
  discovery means that the 300 unique fish species that have been
  documented in the lake must have evolved in the unthinkably short
  interval since the current lake began to form, a geological instant
  ago.

Another example:https://payseur.genetics.wisc.edu/IslandEvolution.htm

Gough Island, located in the South Atlantic about 3000 km southwest of
  South Africa, is home to the largest wild house mice in the world.
  These animals are about twice the mass of wild mice in the United
  Kingdom. Body size evolution has been rapid: mice were recently
  introduced to the island (in the 19th century) and a major size
  increase was observed over just a 40-year period. The drastic size
  change of Gough Island mice has been attributed to low temperature,
  extended longevity, reduced predation, and carnivorous eating habits.
  In a highly unusual behavior, these mice cooperatively feed on live
  and dead chicks of severely endangered albatrosses.


Draw offer without executing move

Question: Scenario: It's Player A's move, and without executing a move he offers a draw. Player B replies "Please make a move". Player A then makes a move, where upon player B says: "Ok, I accept". Is it now possible for Player A to say that the draw offer no longer stands, and was in fact nullified when it was not originally accepted during the period between the offer and the move that Player A did?
Answer: No, Player A cannot do this. FIDE rules of chess article 9.1.1:

A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the
  chessboard and before stopping his clock and starting the opponent's clock.
  An offer at any other time during play is still valid but Article 12.6 must be
  considered. No conditions can be attached to the offer. In both cases the offer
  cannot be withdrawn and remains valid until the opponent accepts it, rejects
  it orally, rejects it by touching a piece with the intention of moving or
  capturing it, or the game is concluded in some other way.

Key parts highlighted. Player A made the draw offer at one of these "other times", so it's still valid and cannot be withdrawn. Player B asking player A to make a move, and player A actually making a move, are not one of the four actions that can terminate the draw offer, so the offer remains valid.
Comment: Checkmate immediately ends the game. You can't accept a draw offer after you've been mated. Stalemate also immediately ends the game.
Comment: What if the move Player A made was to checkmate Player B?  I assume that would be covered under "the game is concluded in some other way" and thus the draw would automatically be rescinded?
Comment: @Michael To be honest I don't know, but it sounds like it, although obviously player B is going to accept before getting checkmated.

Draw offer without executing move


What's the karmic cause for loneliness

Question: I'm wondering why some people have many friends (lasting friendship like friends since kindergarten to college)while some has almost none.
I understand that it would depend on situations in present. But if there's effect from past, what would these be? From buddhism point of view.
Answer: Well you'll never know. From a Buddhism point of view, it could very well be a blessing in disguise:

On one occasion a certain monk, a Vajjian princeling, was dwelling near Vesali in a forest thicket. And on that occasion an all-night festival was being held in Vesali. The monk — lamenting as he heard the resounding din of wind music, string music, & gongs coming from Vesali, on that occasion recited this verse:
I live in the wilderness
      all alone
  like a log cast away in the forest.
  On a night like this,
      who could there be
      more miserable
              than me?
Then the devata inhabiting the forest thicket, feeling sympathy for the monk, desiring his benefit, desiring to bring him to his senses, approached him and addressed him with this verse:
As you live in the wilderness all alone
  like a log cast away in the forest,
  many are those who envy you,
      as hell-beings do,
      those headed for heaven.
The monk, chastened by the devata, came to his senses.
  ~~ SN 9.9 ~~
Answer: To have many friends, one needs to get others involved in good deeds. But being alone isn't always a bad thing. Especially if you can't find good friends.

Should a seeker not find a companion who is better or equal, let him
  resolutely pursue a solitary course; there is no fellowship with the
  fool. - Dhammapada(Balavagga) -61

If you do good deeds and dedicate them to attaining Nibbana, you will be born in places where you can hear the Dhamma and get to meet enlightened beings or at least those who teach the Dhamma. What better association than that?
Answer: Kamma is just one cause of happenings ,not the only cause of everything bad or good happened.
You didn't have friends the day you were born. By your good/bad actions you gain/lose friends.
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm
Answer: Jealousy and envy are a cause for having few friends.Forgive me i forgot where I read this though...but I'm very certain this is the cause.
Comment: It's a mistranslation I believe. Jealousy and Envy lead to being born as insignificant. - [cula-kamma vibhanga sutta](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html)
Comment: Yes this would make sense. Envying anything would create a lack of whatever is being envied in order to teach oneself the life lesson that one doesn't really need whatever that is (friends).
Envy anything and it will be driven further away.
What is better is to understand that everything is based on causes and conditions and cultivate those causes and conditions, without attachment or envy. Effortlessly, the goal will come to oneself.
Comment: Im sure I read it somewhere but the suttas are too many to remember where..
Answer: From my own personal perspective, I think that not having any or few friends generate from many different factors. I have been betrayed by both male and female friends in the past. While i can be outgoing, i choose not to get close to anyone and thus i have one or two "friends" as im not very trusting and these friends i have had for over 15 years. I subconsciously put up walls so that noone is able to get close to me. While this might not be the case for all, i think it depends on the individual and their experiences growing up.
From a Karmic perspective, i think perhaps i either lived a solitary life in the past and just continued it or i had too many people around me that in this life i chose solitude aka 2 friends. Perhaps i was a bad friend to others and this is my karma. One can only speculate on why this happens but i think you can find the answer if you examine your life and the context in which friends play an importance.
Hope this helps.
Answer: From a Karmic viewpoint, many people believe that vows made in previous lives are carried into the current life.  If someone vowed to be a monk/medicant in a previous life, to abandon the world, and spend lifetimes in seclusion, then one could find the energy of that vow carried into the current lifetime.  Everyone should reject all prior vows, of any and all lifetimes, that no longer serve in the current lifetime.  This is clearing the decks, cleaning house.
Other Karmic causes from past lives could be:
- Isolating or imprisoning others
- Having lived as a solitary/non-social animal in a very recent lifetime
- Having cursed people in general in the past
- Lack of forgiveness in previous or current life
Keep up with your practices.  Do what you can to be a friend and to share kindness with others.  Kindness, forgiveness, and spiritual service burn karma faster than many other methods.

What's the karmic cause for loneliness


ReWriteRules and WordPress Multi-Sites with Sub Directories

Question: I'm having a diffucult time getting the ReWriteRules and URL structures setup for a Wordpress 3.4.2 (latest version as of this post) blog with multi-site enabled.
www.ourdomain.com/ is the homepage of an e-commerce site.
We also have
www.ourdomain.com/example-category/
and
www.ourdomain.com/example-product/
As our category and product URL structures. This is all working.
I have installed the wordpress files in the physical folder /var/www/ourdomain/wordpress. Right now, www.ourdomain.com/wordpress/ goes to the default blog. www.ourdomain.com/wordpress/blog1 is the first blog and www.ourdomain.com/wordpress/blog2 is the second.
I've got to this point by adding
ReWriteRule ^/wordpress - [L,NC]

to our vhost file (.htacess is diasabled).
Our intention is for direct requests (from users) for www.ourdomain.com/wordpress(/*) to redirect to the home page www.ourdomain.com/ since the /wordpress folder is just to store files, not intended as an actual blog for users to access.
Requests for www.ourdomain.com/blog/ should silently redirect to www.ourdomain.com/wordpress/blog1. Requests for www.ourdomain.com/policies/ should silently redirect to www.ourdomain.com/wordpress/blog2.
So:
/wordpress/ -> 301 /
/blog/ -> silent /wordpress/blog1
/policies/ -> silent /wordpress/blog2

It seems simple in theory, but not so simple in practice.
I started with:
ReWriteRule ^/wordpress - [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^/blog/(.*)$ /wordpress/blog/$1 [L,NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/blog/ /wordpress/blog/index.php [L]

Which results in a 404 at /blog/. Of course, because /wordpress/blog/index.php isn't a file. There  is no blog folder inside the wordpress folder. The file I want to load is /wordpress/index.php, which reads the URL to determine which blog to load- But the URL has been modified, so this fails. I need a way to invoke /wordpress/index.php from the URL /blog/, but make /wordpress/index.php see the request as if the user went to /wordpress/blog.
Any way to pass a fake URI to PHP from modRewrite? Or an alternative way to achieve this without installing to separate copies of WordPress?
UPDATE:
Since this doesn't seem to be supported in the current version, but I still need this working before the new version is released, I think a work around would be to use something like:
RewriteRule ^/blog/ /wordpress/index.php?site=blog [L]

And then modify the WordPress file that reads the URL and have it set the site variable based on the GET parameter instead. Would that work? Which file contains the code to set the current site?
Answer: This is currently not possible for a multisite setup. It should be possible in WordPress 3.5 which is planned to be released next month. So your only solution is: wait.
Update December 26: This is now possible in WordPress 3.5 without further hacks. :)
Comment: I've added an update to my question with an idea for a workaround.