Client wants source files BEFORE project is finished

Question: So I've read a lot about giving source files AFTER the job is finished, but I've started a project with a new client and gave them a PDF of the first draft (presentation deck). However they are asking for the source files right away - I worry that this is a bad move because I haven't been paid yet (they pay at the end) and what if they decide to take what I've done and give it to someone else? They are a marketing firm with plenty of designers on hand. Advice?
Comment: Don't do it. This should already be in your contract. If it's not, make sure to add it for your next client
Comment: FYI for next time: You can ask to change aspect of contracts before you agree to them
Comment: @TCDesigner Then insist on using their hardware and licenses. That way there is no question that the stuff is not in their hand. UNDER no circumstances lend your hardware for their work or you get into a liability problem. Anyway you can obviously not guarantee the situation that they have the sources unless they have access to the computer you are working on. Just document what you did and how much time you used on paper and on a email trail. If they refuse to pay even by a second go to small claims court.
Comment: The contract was theirs, and I believe it says they own the source files. I had read that and was OK with that for this project, but was surprised that they asked for it so early.
Answer: If you signed a work-for-hire contract, or a contract which explicitly states they own the native files. Then okay.. it's not normal, and it's something many savvy clients want. So, if you agreed to it, you agreed to it. You can't keep them from the files.
But that's not really the question here.
Business has to work on some trust. So while things may sit uneasily for you in this instance, you did agree to provide the files and if there's no stipulation on when those files are to be provided, it's a matter of negotiation.
If they want source files before work is complete.... ask them about it. Explain that you are concerned about littering communication and deliverables with preliminary, incomplete files which may or may not be in a workable state moving forward. Explain that you would rather complete the project and then forward native files with your invoice when the project is finished. This provides you the opportunity to clean up and prepare the native files so that they are more manageable at a later date should they edit them themselves.  However, if they are still adamant about wanting files, give them the files. That's what you agreed to do. Any notable resistance on your part will not be favorable in terms of client relations.
Don't approach things with the mindset that "They are going to rip me off." Give them the benefit of the doubt (mostly because you already agreed to it).
Ideally you'd have a clause in the contract which implicitly states that native files are only delivered upon full payment. However, if that's not the case... you're on even terms -- they have as much right to the files as you have to payment.
Is there a chance they'll take your files and run? Yes. Can you prevent that? Probably not. If there's no contract clause about receiving payment before files are delivered, you should deliver files when asked... and learn from the experience to negotiate better next time.
This is one of those things that just makes you cringe for agreeing to something before thinking it through completely (I've done it and learned :) )... you have to put your head between your knees and hope that they are a trustworthy business and no bomb goes off.
Answer: That is the whole purpose of them hiring you. When you get paid in FULL, they get the source files. Nothing complex, nothing personal, that is how graphic arts BUSINESS works.
Simply explain to the client that the purpose of the PDF is to discuss the work and any changes that need to be made, and once you have received FULL payment, you will gladly hand over the files. If they are a marketing firm with plenty of designers on hand, they FULLY understand the situation. STICK TO YOUR GUNS, keep all files until payment. OR suggest a "pre-completion" deposit of 3 times the payment price, refundable upon full payment at the end of the project. Then, if they take the files and use them, you keep their deposit...
Comment: Re your first paragraph, that isn't how the business works. Simply handing over source files isn't the norm
Comment: @LaurenIpsum theres a big difference between working/source files and regular deliverables. Of course they get *a* file (or files), but they don't get working InDesign or Illustrator documents without prior agreement and paying a release fee
Comment: @Cai Well, it depends on the job. If the end product is a logo or illustration, the client does get some kind of file which can be used. That may not be all the scratch files, or the PSD with 400 layers and sketches, but it is a file which can be edited and not a PDF.
Comment: (i.e. [How to work out a publication working file release fee?](http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/q/69444/52050) and linked Q&As)
Comment: @Cai I'll agree with you there.


Would my hands sweat this much if I wasn't wearing gloves?

Question: I've wondered about this for a long time, and hopefully someone here has a reasonable answer. I'm a cell and molecular biologist, and much of my time at the bench is spent wearing (usually nitrile) gloves. I've noticed that if I wear them for longer than 10 or 15 minutes they start accumulating sweat. However, my hands aren't clammy or damp when I'm not wearing gloves, so my question is whether my hands are always sweating at approximately the same rate, and the impermeable barrier of the gloves just traps the moisture, or does the enclosed environment inside the gloves promote sweating? My hands don't seem particularly hot when I have the gloves on, and the gloves themselves are pretty thin, although they do have some insulating properties, as I can handle items taken from a -80°C more easily gloved than bare-handed. What causes this diaphoresis?
Comment: Skin produces a basal level of sweat all the time, so as far as makes sense to me, they simply prevent evaporation.
Comment: To the (potential) close-voters: This is not a medical question (I'm not asking for medical advice, I'm simply describing a phenotype). This isn't (or shouldn't be) primarily opinion-based, because I'm not asking for opinions, I'm asking if there is a clear, biological explanation for this. If you happen to disagree, please leave a comment and I'll try and clean up the wording.
Answer: Hand sweating has been fairly well-studied, both because sweating from the hands is one of the main mechanisms of heat dissipation at higher temperatures and because there is a significant effect on palmar sweating by the autonomic nervous system (the main cause of hyperhydrosis of the palms).
Disregarding autonomic effects (stress response), the single most important determinant of hand and foot blood flow is the thermal status of the body core. Heat dissipation is more marked in the hands than feet, and remains so as temperature increases.
Studies have been done of palmar sweating in extremes of temperatures, palmar sweating changes with aging (decreases), palmar sweating in disease, etc. But what has not been studied is the effect of localized heat on sweating of the palms, which would be of interest to you if sweating was a result of the insulating capacity of the gloves.
What is known about palmar sweating is that it is an ongoing and important process in both genders, at all temperatures, and at all ages. The most reasonable assumption then, given the limits of the literature, is that your hands sweat continuously and steadily at a given temperature, and it is highly likely that you are noticing it when wearing gloves only because the vapor barrier caused by the gloves prohibits evaporation.
The roles of hands and feet in temperature regulation in hot and cold environments
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACTIVITY OF SWEAT GLANDS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE INFLUENCE OF AGEING
Why do I get sweaty palms?
Comment: @ChrisStronks - That's a real possibility! Palm sweating is a response to core temperature. Hand temperature isn't reflective of core temp (it varies much more), and there were no studies where the hands alone were warmed to measure it's impact on core temp or sweat production or evaporation was prevented. I have to guess, then. I think it's unlikely that the small heat gain from the hands would affect the core temperature, but I could be wrong. I wished I had found more on that (it was frustrating not to be able to say definitively). :-/
Comment: Thanks for the answer, I had kind of forgotten about this question. It's too bad there hasn't been any work done on local temps, because I suspect that's why this happens - the gloves are somewhat insulating and there's no opportunity for evaporation, therefore raising the local temperature and causing a positive feedback loop. I guess I'll have to read up more on sweating disorders, as I tend to be rather... shall we say... damp frequently, but that's OT for here unless I anonymize it :)
Comment: But then - If sweating reduces temperature, would the increased temperature not facilitate sweating? That was the reason for me not answering this, apparently, but actually not quite obvious question (+1 for the excellent answer btw :-)
Comment: @ChrisStronks Sweating does reduce the temperature - you are right. But the glove prevents evaporation and thereby the cooling effect.
Comment: @Chris - yes! And therefore without the evap-cooling effect (I thought) the hands would start to sweat more because of the local temperature increase (sorry I wasn't clear). But as (@)anongoodnurse indicates: it's core temperature that drives sweating so my reasoning isn't valid I guess :) Interesting question after all :-)


Explanation of the opening scene of Inception

Question: Can someone explain the opening scene of Inception where Cobb is shown on the sea shore? He looks weak and is taken by the men of the old guy, who then shares food with Cobb. This old guy looks like Saito, the same guy who hires Cobb to plant the idea in Robert's mind. How did Saito become so old while Cobb looks the same? How can this be possible?
Comment: @Paulie_D so whose dream we are in that scene?
Comment: It's a dream...but then the whole movie is dreams.
Answer: The beginning of Inception is out of order of the actual events of the movie.  This scene actually occurs after Saito dies in the third layer of the dream, going into Limbo.  Due to the drugs that the dreamers took, time becomes more distorted with each successive layer of the dream, with Limbo having the biggest distortion.  A single second in the real world is a life time in Limbo.
What we see at the beginning of the movie is when Cobb first lands in Limbo in order to rescue Saito.  Saito is so old because, for him, he's been there for years, even though it's only been a few seconds in the dream layer above.
Comment: then according to this Cobb went to 4 level and come back to save Saito and both went back to real world?
Comment: @shv22 yes, Cobb realizes where they were and gets Saito and him back to reality, hence them waking up on the plane
Answer: It is explained towards the end of the movie, when Cobb goes into limbo to save Saito. The concept of dreams-within-dreams is that time dilation between reality and what the person is experiencing inside a dream gets more and more severe with each consecutive layer of dream. The reason it's called limbo is because it's not artificially constructed like the first 3 layers, and so whatever happens in there is very unpredictable, and you are likely to go even deeper since your chances of dying get higher and higher. Limbo is essentially point of no return. Saito is presumably in a VERY deep layer of the limbo, and the time dilation from reality is so stretched out that by the time Cobb went there (probably only a few seconds for Cobb), Saito had grown insanely old.


MySqlDb Install Error: Python 2.6; Mac OS 10.6, XAMPP installed

Question: I recently migrated to the world of Macs. And I'm trying to get my Django apps up and running. However, I'm having hard time in installing MySQLDb connector. I prefer using XAMPP hence dont have separate copies of MySql/Apache installations. I installed MySqlDb using MacPorts by executing following command:
<code>sudo port install py26-mysql
</code>
It was installed without any issues. But when I try to run my Django app (with settings.py containing MySql database) I get following error.
<code>    /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/__init__.py:60: DeprecationWarning: Short names for ENGINE in database configurations are deprecated. Prepend default.ENGINE with 'django.db.backends.'
  DeprecationWarning
Unhandled exception in thread started by <bound method Command.inner_run of <django.contrib.staticfiles.management.commands.runserver.Command object at 0x101112310>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/runserver.py", line 88, in inner_run
    self.validate(display_num_errors=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 243, in validate
    from django.core.management.validation import get_validation_errors
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/validation.py", line 3, in <module>
    from django.contrib.contenttypes.generic import GenericForeignKey, GenericRelation
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/contenttypes/generic.py", line 6, in <module>
    from django.db import connection
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/__init__.py", line 78, in <module>
    connection = connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS]
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 93, in __getitem__
    backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE'])
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 33, in load_backend
    return import_module('.base', backend_name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 14, in <module>
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("Error loading MySQLdb module: %s" % e)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named MySQLdb
</code>
Any help would be highly appreciated! :)
Answer: Likely mysql-python is not installed (properly).
Answer: Installing Mysql on OSX is an involved process.


Why don't many of the Republicans in the House and Senate believe in climate change?

Question: In their foundations, they support the laissez faire (economics) but they don't accept the green economy. Are there any logical reasons of why most Republicans (not all) refuse to acknowledge climate change? Are their ideas supported by any ideology, movements, lobbies?
Comment: This isn't the place to analyze motivations. This question is unfit for an SE.
Comment: This isn't really a question as much as an argumentative stance. Can you reword this in a more neutral manner and perhaps focus on an specific aspect of it (rather than a general 'all republicans' statement).
Comment: There is an underlying assumption to this question that because a politician says he doesn't believe the accepted science, that he actually doesn't.  Please note how many politicians change their stances once they are out of office and are no longer under the onus to raise money and assistance from specific business groups.
Comment: Comments deleted. Please note that this is a website about politics. If you would like to talk about whether or not climate change is real, please do that on https://earthscience.stackexchange.com.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Why is denying global warming associated with conservatives?](https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/1211/why-is-denying-global-warming-associated-with-conservatives)
Comment: Also note that not *all* republicans refuse to acknowledge climate change. Just this week: https://www.facebook.com/notes/arnold-schwarzenegger/i-dont-give-a-if-we-agree-about-climate-change/10153855713574658
Comment: Voted to leave open.  Jasper's proposed duplicate is similar, but is more general (and if anything, that one perhaps should have been closed for being too wide).  The US has specific issues which make it valid to ask the question  with this narrower framing.  It also enables the obvious challenge as to whether the opinion genuinely is "most Republicans", and if so, discussion of how and why some Republicans might dissent from the party line.
Answer: I'm not American, and would only sometimes vote Republican if I were, so your question is not directly addressed to me. Nonetheless the debate about climate change crosses national borders so I believe I can still contribute a useful answer on one of your points.
You write,  "...they support the laissez faire (economics) but they don't accept the green economy."
It's not "but", it's "therefore". The green economy arises mostly as a result of government action, the opposite of laissez faire. The main drivers of the green economy are:

government subsidies to companies providing services that are believed to be environmentally desirable, e.g. solar power, wind power, insulation in houses, recycling, research into green technology;
jobs created in the above industries and jobs created to ensure compliance with green regulation;
the curtailment by taxation or legislation of activities that are seen as environmentally undesirable (e.g. coal mining), which pushes investment into activities seen as desirable.

A believer in laissez faire by definition thinks that utility is maximised if the market is allowed free play.
So they are very likely to think that the "green job creation" as a result of government subsidy is outweighed by the jobs and wealth destroyed by the taxation necessary to pay for the subsidy. Jobs created simply in order to fulfil environmental laws will be seen as still worse, as harmful to everybody but the job-holder. (All economists, not just believers in laissez-faire, agree that to all but the job-holder jobs are a cost not a benefit. Often a necessary cost, but still a cost.) As for jobs, so for wealth and utility generally.
Another reason for many of those Republicans who believe in the free market (which not all Republicans do) to think that the green economy is incompatible with laissez-faire is that many of their opponents say so too.
For instance, the well-known activist Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate is described in the following terms on its US Amazon page:
"The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core "free market" ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems."
The anti-capitalist tone of much climate justice activism leads pro-capitalist people to suspect that the danger from climate change is being exaggerated, consciously or unconsciously, as an excuse to justify political measures they oppose.
Comment: I fail to see the logic here. They might think that *laissez-faire* is incompatible with preserving the environement (and I agree), however I don't see how this makes the global warming not happening. **Saying the global warming is not happening because you like *laissez-faire* is like saying cigarettes aren't harmful because you like smoking.**
Comment: The irony of this, of course, is that the non-green energy industries in the US are heavily government subsidized. :)
Comment: Excellent analogy with beliefs about smoking but it cuts both ways. Motivated reasoning is common across the political spectrum. Just as there are those who disbelieve in global warming because its existence would be politically inconvenient, so also there are those who believe in it because it would be politically convenient. Both beliefs are illogical. Both are nonetheless widespread. It is reasonable to suspect that people may, as I said in the last sentence of my post, unconsciously modify their beliefs as to fact to suit their politics. The question asked why don't (some) Republicans...
Comment: If the perceived effects of climate change were such that they worked FOR the Republican agenda, the Democrats would be deniers and the Republicans would be decrying them as anti-science.  It just happened to work out the other way around.
Comment: American politics seem laden with confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.
Comment: ...believe in climate change. I suggested a couple of reasons. There are quite similar reasons, good and bad, to explain why some Democrats do believe in climate change.
Comment: @BrianTurner to be clear, *all* energy is heavily subsidized in the US...be it green or otherwise. Trump arguably got elected in part by pushing for subsidized coal.
Comment: American politics are like a damn religion, you don't have to believe in facts for them the be facts.
Comment: A couple of comments & caveats that didn't fit in my answer above: (1) currently the green economy in most Western countries is government-driven, but it doesn't have to be in principle. People freely buying and selling  - or giving away - environmentally friendly products won't be objected to by even the most fervent advocate of laissez-faire. (2) The issues of environmentalism and climate change are often joined together, as was the case in both the question and my answer, but again they don't have to be. You can have very "green" people who don't believe in climate change and vice versa.
Comment: I like the criticism of my stance on laissez-faire economics and the green ecconomy. I hadn't considered how heavily subsidized the green ecconomy is.
Comment: @kbelder no, that's not the case. There is science and...that's it. There's science.
Comment: As Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!".
Comment: @kbelder You are probably right, but the Republican party seems at odds with science in a greater number of areas (evolution, abortion), usually on religious grounds, that I also have to think that anti-scientific positions are much easier for them to adopt for political convenience. But again, many Democrats tend to be anti-GMO (though not as a political platform that I can find), so it does seem to infect both sides, just perhaps not evenly. I suppose I'd have to see more examples of where Democrat/progressive politicians disregarded science for political gain, both as platform and policy.
Answer: There's a particularly important phenomenon at work here: things are harder to believe in if they're costly. For example, someone may say "I'm 100% sure my sportsball team will win that game," but that same person will probably be unlikely to make a $1000 bet at 100:1 odds against them that their team will win. When believing something has costs people become less sure and more sceptical.
I would argue that believing in (and believing we must take action to solve) catastrophic anthropomorphic climate change is much more costly to someone with a conservative world-view than with to someone with a more progressive or liberal world-view. Note I said conservative not Republican, the Republican party is an organization with one goal, win elections, conservatism is political philosophy which makes up one constituency likely to vote Republican and thus influences the positions of Republican lawmakers.
Conservatives see value in the existing social order. Hybrid cars and eco-friendly light-bulbs will not change atmospheric CO2 levels significantly. What will is rapidly switching almost all power from fossil fuels to renewable sources and nuclear power. This transition could fundamentally change or risk the destruction of the current societal order. Billions to trillions of dollars in equipment and human expertise related to fossil fuels would become drastically less useful and hundreds of thousands to millions of people would have to change jobs (just petroleum extraction and coal mining is 200,000 jobs). Communities would change as people moved. Furthermore, renewable energy is more expensive (especially in the short run during the transition) and people's standard of living would be effected. All of this screams change, and conservatives are much less likely than those of other philosophies to embrace such change.
Conservatives are distrustful of governmental power, and it would take a lot of governmental power to change atmospheric CO2 levels. Conservatives see a huge risk of corruption and special interests gaining power as the clumsy hand of government attempts to remake the energy market. Progressives are much more comfortable with using governmental power and see it as much more efficient and effective.
Conservatives are distrustful of the international community. Conservatives have little faith that the entire world would be willing to simultaneously make the cutbacks necessary to actually have a significant effect on atmospheric C02 levels. They worry that a "cheating" nation could gain significant advantage militarily and economically from consuming fossil fuels and jeopardize the global order and peace. Many progressives have much more faith in the power of organizations like the UN and diplomacy to resolve these issues.
For these reasons it's much more costly for a conservative to believe in and want to stop climate change than a progressive. Despite the wealth of macro statistical data, there is no airtight reproducible double blind experiment proving the effect of mankind on the climate. So there is room for doubt both in climate change's existence and especially in degree to which man is responsible for climate change and accuracy of predictions of what will happen to the climate (which are much more difficult and many conservatives perceive as having been wrong before). Given this room for doubt, many conservatives deny climate change outright or remain agnostic saying something like "it's probably real, but I'm reluctant to take massive policy action without stronger evidence."
Note, I'm not saying these beliefs are correct or articles are fair and unbiased; I'm just trying to explain a position.
Comment: @dwjohnston, upnitpick: there are two parties with the bet; the one offering odds and the one betting.  The person offering 100:1 odds is 99% certain against the win; the $1000 bet may be anywhere from 0.000001% certainty to 99.999999% certainty (and 100% certainty).  Here's an example of a 0% certain bet:  ( https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/how-donald-trump-s-father-once-bailed-out-his-casino/article_934cb836-2c1d-11e6-8a13-173759856fe0.html )
Comment: Nitpick: If the rational decision was to make a 100:1 bet, that would make the person 99% sure.
Answer: It is impossible to answer this question for every Republican; each may have their own reasons for the determination they've come to. So, the following answer is a representation of the reasoning, in the circles I travel, that the prospect of man-made climate change is questionable. There are four main points, highlighted below with amplifying information. They will be followed by a summary.
History of Data Manipulation
There are two significant incidents where it has been revealed after the fact that those developing the man made climate change narrative have made demonstrated lapses in integrity. First was the Hockey Stick graph, first released in 1999 (Mann, Bradley, and Hughes). It was subsequently weighed down with challenges to the statistical methods it used and a critique questioning  the choice to minimize the statistical influence of the Medieval Warming Period, the latter highlighted by the differences in the IPCC reports between 1990 and 2001. The integrity of the work was further tainted by the hacking of climate research email servers which provided a perspective of conspiracy (more later).
More recently, the choice of NOAA to 'adjust' recorded temperature information, lowering earlier records and raising current records, furthers the perspective of manipulation.
Data Not Available for Review
In addition to the question of data integrity, there is an ongoing complaint that many of the reports and news articles present the results of an review, without providing the source information and methodology for evaluation.
With a Bachelors in Mathematics and a Masters in Systems Engineering, not having access to the raw data increases the skeptical approach.
Active Conspiracies
While some level of confidentiality and opaqueness is expected in scientific exploration, the lengths that the proponents for climate change goes to doesn't help the perception that something untoward is going on behind the scenes. This is worsened be previously referenced release of emails from within a climate change organization that reflected those concerns.
Abandonment of the Scientific Process
The line that creates the most cringing response is "the science is settled," with the impression being that it has been proven that man made actions have an influence on climate change. That isn't how science works. It far easier to prove the negative, that a thing doesn't exist, than to ever prove a thing does exist. Consider the level of proof required for even the simplest of scientific claims. In this case, the intention that the exhausts of man made technologies has an influence on climate change (again, more later), requires an in depth understanding of a multitude of factors, which non-exhaustively includes: solar cycles, irregularities of the planets orbit, irregularities of the planets rotation, the cyclical nature of prevailing winds, interaction of the moon on the tides and the resulting effects, irregularities of the planet's core hydraulic rotation, shifting of the continental shelves, variation of volcanic heating influences on the oceans, and many, many more. Further, the claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, which is held true in order to curtail it's production, is questionable. An increased availability of carbon dioxide would encourage an expanse in plant growth.
Summary
Climate Change does exist; there are cyclical pattern that can be demonstrated in what weather does. That said, I can't give much credence to the claims that man kind is at direct fault for it.
Comment: This answer is full of really poor reasoning and logic but...it actually answers the question directly: lots of people don't believe it because they allow a few incidents to cloud the overall scientific consensus. +1
Comment: @blip-Science isn't about consensus; it is about verifiable data and repeatable results. This is an abridged version of what I've researched else where.
Comment: Downvoted because this answer is (1) factually incorrect, (2) unsourced, (3) borderline irrelevant.
Comment: @gerrit Are you saying there aren't republicans that believe the above?
Comment: 'scientific consensus' is a thing, but there's no need for us to debate the issue here. I think your answer answers the question quite well.
Comment: @DrunkCynic Distinction between what they believe and claim to believe is speculative and offtopic, but as your answer is written, you leave the impression there is any truth or relevance in the *content* of the argument. The answer could be improved and made non-partisan by directly sourcing/quoting top Republicans to make clear those are their words (i.e. *Republican X alleges data are not available for review [source]*, *Republican Y alleges the scientific process has been abandoned [source]*, *Republican Z alleges data manipulation [source]*, etc.).
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32958/discussion-on-answer-by-drunk-cynic-why-dont-many-of-the-republicans-in-the-hou).
Comment: @gerrit Sourced.
Answer: For the record, I am neither a "believer" nor a "skeptic" on the question of man-made climate change.  I am unresolved on it.
It is of course possible that contributions from fossil fuel companies have successfully influenced Republican decision-making in Congress away from what it would otherwise be.  But the existence of the contributions by itself doesn't prove anything.  Perhaps it is the other way around, that these companies merely support those who already favor their positions.
Going beyond the "follow the money" theory, there are several major factors as I see it as to why a Republican in Congress, or a Republican voter, who does not have a PhD in a relevant scientific field, might not accept the "consensus" on climate change we've heard so much about.

How can it be known that the earth is warming?  This is not a small thing to claim to "know".  Temperature varies wildly in any place as time passes.  Weather has been recorded at a useful level of precision for something like 150 years now.  So how can it possibly be proven that a small upward trend in global averages is taking place on a scale of tens of thousands of years?  More specifically, what does it mean for this idea to be "proven" or "disproven"?  What are the criteria?  In all I have read on the subject, I have never seen any serious discussion of the criteria for proof or disproof - except by climate skeptics.
How can it be known that any warming is caused by human activity?  This is also not a small thing to claim to know.  Especially given that natural events have been known to suddenly and drastically alter earth's climate at least for a time.  In order to be considered scientific, an idea must be falsifiable.  And again, only climate skeptics seem to openly discuss this very important question.  From believers, the answer seems to be, "trust the scientists", or worse, "you must believe the earth is flat too".
Is the research behind the findings free of bias?  The Obama administration made climate change a top issue, even tasking unrelated agencies with climate change related initiatives, and Obama himself proclaimed "the debate is settled" as a way to shame anyone who disagrees with the conclusion.  Professional scientists must secure funding to continue their work, and since government is the source of much of the climate science funding, this necessarily puts political pressure on scientists to produce results favoring climate change.  And in such a cultural setting, could a PhD candidate who is very open about his/her climate skepticism possibly be awarded a doctorate in this field?  If not, perhaps such a person would be labelled incompetent, but to me that could just as easily be groupthink.  Frankly, even the OP carries the apparent attitude that disagreement implies lower intelligence.  At the very least, this bias fully explains how 90+% of scientists in the field might agree on the climate change question, without at all strengthening the argument itself.
Is the research behind the findings free of error and fraud?  We've all heard by now about the Climategate story.  Partly in aftermath of it, there is now a lot of chatter out there about the altering of raw temperature data in a way that happens to suit the apparently-desired outcome, and even in one case deleting the raw data keeping only the altered data, which if true does not sound very scientific to me.

But perhaps most suspicious of all:

The "solution" to human-caused climate change seems to be giving the government, or even the UN, total control.  To me this is a troubling non sequitur.  Another answer references the book This Changes Everything.  This kind of messaging, which is all too common, makes it all seem like a scam, a Big Lie intended to change free-market Western republics into totalitarian Communist societies.  This policy response seems especially dissonant considering that China, long a Communist country, appears to be contributing more than the United States to environmental problems lately.  If total state control over the energy economy is the answer, why isn't China a green paradise by now?
Comment: Technically, if you are 'unresolved' on this issue, you are pretty much a skeptic. Also, wrapping the term consensus in quotes is just misleading and silly. There *is* scientific consensus on this issue. Regardless, this answer reads mostly as a rant.
Comment: The response to this answer, to me, reinforces some of its content.  But it is sincere.  I am no troll.
Comment: I'm not questioning your sincerity. Just pointing out some flaws in the logic.
Answer: As reported in The New York Times in 2017, the more education Republicans have, the less they tend to believe in climate change.
As of 2017, this may be because of the "hiatus" in warming that was not predicted by climate models.  Here's a snippet of what the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014 / current) included on that subject:

Box TS.3 |  Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
The observed [global mean surface temperature (or GMST)] has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years (Box TS.3, Figure 1a, c). Depending on the observational data set, the GMST trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one third to one half of the trend over 1951–2012. For example, in [the observational data set called] HadCRUT4 the trend is 0.04°C per decade over 1998–2012, compared to 0.11°C per decade over 1951–2012. The reduction in observed GMST trend is most marked in [northern hemisphere] winter. Even with this 'hiatus' in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST. Nevertheless, the occurrence of the hiatus in GMST trend during the past 15 years raises the two related questions of what has caused it and whether climate models are able to reproduce it. {2.4.3, 9.4.1; Box 9.2; Table 2.7}
Fifteen-year-long hiatus periods are common in both the observed and CMIP5 historical GMST time series. However, an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (augmented for the period 2006–2012 by RCP4.5 simulations) reveals that 111 out of 114 realizations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble (Box TS.3, Figure 1a; CMIP5 ensemble mean trend is 0.21°C per decade). This difference between simulated and observed trends could be caused by some combination of (a) internal climate variability, (b) missing or incorrect [radiative forcing], and (c) model response error.

The IPCC report finishes that section with this summary:

In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in [global mean surface temperature, or GMST,] trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012, is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgement, medium confidence). The forcing trend reduction is due primarily to a negative forcing trend from both volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the solar cycle. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of forcing trend in causing the hiatus, because of uncertainty in the magnitude of the volcanic forcing trend and low confidence in the aerosol forcing trend. {Box 9.2}
Almost all CMIP5 historical simulations do not reproduce the observed recent warming hiatus. There is medium confidence that the GMST trend difference between models and observations during 1998–2012 is to a substantial degree caused by internal variability, with possible contributions from forcing error and some CMIP5 models overestimating the response to increasing [greenhouse gas] forcing. The CMIP5 model trend in [effective radiative forcing, or ERF,] shows no apparent bias against the AR5 best estimate over 1998–2012. However, confidence in this assessment of CMIP5 [effective radiative forcing]  trend  is  low,  primarily  because  of  the  uncertainties  in  model  aerosol  forcing  and  processes,  which  through  spatial  heterogeneity  might well cause an undetected global mean [effective radiative forcing] trend error even in the absence of a trend in the global mean aerosol loading. {Box 9.2}
The causes of both the observed GMST trend hiatus and of the model–observation GMST trend difference during 1998–2012 imply that, barring a major volcanic eruption, most 15-year GMST trends in the near-term future will be larger than during 1998–2012 (high confidence; see Section 11.3.6 for a full assessment of near-term projections of GMST). The reasons for this implication are fourfold: first, anthropogenic GHG concentrations are expected to rise further in all RCP scenarios; second, anthropogenic aerosol concentration is expected to decline in all RCP scenarios, and so is the resulting cooling effect; third, the trend in solar forcing is expected to be larger over most near-term 15-year periods than over 1998–2012 (medium confidence), because 1998–2012 contained the full downward phase of the solar cycle; and fourth, it is more likely than not that internal climate variability in the near term will enhance and not counteract the surface warming expected to arise from the increasing anthropogenic forcing. {Box 9.2}
Answer: A lot of misinformation here so far. First, in people referring to the costliness of the program
Are merely referring to the costs and not net costs. Here's one for you, every environmental regulation from regan On has had an economic impact analysis done on it. They weigh net costs vs benifts. I've looked at hundreds of these during my time as an environmental scientist and I've never sees one that is a net loss. When you hear a political talk about how a regulation will cost x amount of dollars, this can almost always be traced back to this report I'm referring to. But they always leave out the benifts! Don't believe me? Here is the one for Obama's clean power plan https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-10/documents/ria_proposed-cpp-repeal_2017-10.pdf
And one for arsenic in drinking water that was big during bush II years https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPdf.cgi?Dockey=20001YQT.txt
 Things such as subsidies and carbon taxes can be used to add more of something that a market tends to undershoot, like things that produce externalities. The idea that regulations of the environment is all cost and no benift is way to simple. For further reading on these estimates check out the statistical value of a human life (real thing used in valuations) if you really want
To get into the weeds. So to answer your question, the only financial reason they would deny it is either campaign contributions or not understanding environmental economics. Also genuinely disbelief in the science can stem from where they grew up. We are all the victims or benificeries of our parents beliefs and in states that elect conservative people have heard climate science is bullshit.
Comment: By assigning the right number to those "externalities," any net cost can be reached. E.g. the cost of releasing 1 ton CO2 can be anything between zero (it doesn't impact anything), infinity (we're doomed!). Or even a negative cost - in other words a benefit - (increased plant growth, nicer temperature). Assigning a value to that is political from the start.
Comment: you're argument could literally be applied to anything. Externalities I'm referring to are calculated and provided eveidnece as to how the reach them. The statisital value of a life, which lots of these boil down to, is a very thorough examination of existing data about how much we value our own lives. What you're sugggesting isn't realistic and isn't valid to the conversation.
Comment: To make that a little clearer, any economic impact study could theoretically come up with any number, that doesn't mean the number found is invalid. If what you're saying was true, math wouldn't be valid


What is the difference between different "make" commands?

Question: So after running configure file on source codes for different applications one enters make and make install to install the application. My question is what is the difference between make and make install?
Answer: make looks for the first target in the Makefile. (GNU Make allows configuring this.)
make install looks for a target named exactly "install".
Comment: @Naji Because some software developers just prefer it that way - one target to compile, and one to move the files to the destination on the file system ("install"). There's nothing saying you *have* to run both, or that everything that uses `make` *must* have an `install` target. There's absolutely no rules except what's defined in each specific `Makefile`, though there are general guidelines many developers follow. Normally guidelines are specific to smallish groups - there's an infinite number of ways to do things, many equally valid.
Comment: then why ones have to run both?!
Comment: And then during "make" command process, no files then being copied anywhere, right?
Comment: @Bob The guideline that "building and installing should be separate" is followed by a huge majority, though.
Comment: @Bob, so where are the files that are being compiled?
Comment: the files either reside in the directory make is being invoked from, or in a location specified in the makefile. look at the first target of your makefile and check out what it does.
Answer: Make install is one of various possible targets in a Makefile. As a simple example, the other very common one is clean: make clean, in general, cleans temporary files which are necessary/useful by-products of the compilation process, but which are no longer needed once the final executable has been produced.
Make install contains the instructions to insert the compiled product into the system, for instance by running the necessary depmod command which takes care of a module installation.

then why ones have to run both?!

Because the first one can be executed as a normal user, the second often requires system privileges.
If your next question is: then why not run both as sudo, then the answer is that not all installations are going to be used system-wide. For instance, if you do not have root privileges on a system you have access to, you may wish to compile and install a given package for your own exclusive use. In this case, you want to be able to compile it and pass it to the linker, but you cannot install it for use by all system users. In this case, the reason for the difference is obvious.
In other words, each stage of the installation process is organized so that it can be executed with the lowest possible privileges, which allows both system-wide and local installations, whenever this makes sense.


Is hospital ER liable for an injury of a deranged untestrained patient?

Question: A stroke patient who is clearly deranged due to the stroke arrives to ER. The patient is not listening to instructions and acts out. The patient is told to stay on the bed and not to get up and left unattended. The patient gets up, falls face down, and breaks her nose. The broken nose weeks later complicates treatment. Is the ER liable?
Answer: This would be a question of fact for a jury, informed by expert testimony, to evaluate. There is no one correct answer and it is a mixed question of law and fact. The jury is given a very broad legal standard and has to apply it to the facts. The jury is not told how other cases with similar facts have been resolved by previous juries and the judge and appellate courts can't consider how factually similar cases were decided on the disputed factual issues either.
Some of the key mixed issues of law and fact would be:

Duty: Has a medical professional-patient relationship been established, and if so, with whom?

Negligence: Did a medical professional who had this person as a patient fail to act with the care of a reasonable medical professional of this type? This would be mostly a question of fact for a jury to resolve on a case by case basis based upon expert testimony particular to that case. Also, there are some circumstances when a gross negligence rather than a negligence standard would apply based upon specific state tort reform laws. I have no idea what reasonable medical professionals would do in these circumstances. Factors like how busy the ER was at the time would also be relevant.

Causation and Injury: To what extent did not taking the act alleged to be negligent and found by a jury to be negligent cause an injury and if so, how much of the harm was attributable to that negligent act as opposed to the underlying condition for which treatment was sought? This would be primarily a question of fact to be resolved based upon factual and expert testimony.

Was was the relationship of the patient to the ER and to the medical professionals who were allegedly negligent? What was the relationship of the medical professionals involved to the ER? What does state law say about the responsibility of this particular hospital (which might be private, state and local, or federal) for medical malpractice by medical professionals providing services in the ER? If the entity to be sued is a governmental one, what exceptions to sovereign immunity apply in this jurisdiction for this type of entity? Most entity liability is vicarious due to acts of negligence by its employees and agents. But sometimes entity liability is direct due to having bad policies in place that are negligent across the board for an entity of that type to have in place.

Did the patient have comparative fault? In many states the jury is charged with allocating what percentage of fault is due to each party, when multiple people (including the "victim") are negligent, and not with an all or nothing negligence determination. If the patient was deranged due to voluntary intoxication or drug use or just being stubborn and ornery, the jury might attach some percentage of comparative fault to the patient.

Did the patient fail to mitigate damages? A related issue to comparative fault is that the patient has a duty to use reasonable efforts to minimize the amount of injury that the patient suffers, for example, by following doctor's orders. This is rarely a complete defense and probably wouldn't be in this case, but the defendants being sued could argue, for example, that some of the broken nose related complications in the treatment were due to not following discharge instructions properly, rather than necessarily from the broken nose itself.
Comment: I though that the professional-patient relationship was established by ER acceptance of EMT delivery. Causation: ER immediately noticed that the patient is erratic due to stoke and pulls out wires, etc. They didn't sedate her or restrained her due to the hospital policies. They even mentioned to a family member that the patient is erratic and they don't know what to do with her because they don't restrain patients with strokes. They didn't sedate her and yet left her unattended. She tried to stand up and fell face down soon after that. There was no intoxication, only the stroke.
Comment: @Michael The law of how a professional-patient relationship is established is a matter of common law and regulations upon which there is not great uniformity among states, and also isn't necessary the same for all purposes - it might be one rule for billing purposes and another for liability purposes. Re Causation: You are missing the forest for the tress. The facts matter, but only to guide a jury (or in a bench trial, to guide a judge). There is no legal doctrine and there are no precedents that you can look to in order to tell if a particular fact pattern did or did not cause an injury.


Is there a way to make nautilus run individual processes?

Question: Is there a way to make running "nautilus" create a new process, instead of using the existing one? I'm annoyed with my dock's nautilus launchers thinking the nautilus window is a new application.
Comment: Does changing the nautilus launch command to `nautilus --no-desktop` do what you want?
Comment: I'm afraid not.
Comment: Which 'dock' are you talking about?
Answer: If your goal is to prevent new Nautilus windows from displaying as though they are separate applications in the Unity launcher, then making them actually be separate application instances would almost certainly not be helpful.
As others have said, launching separate Nautilus processes will probably not do what you want. For example, you would probably not be able to drag an icon from one Nautilus window to another.
However, if you want to do this, one simple way to achieve it is to install openssh-server and then use ssh -X to connect "remotely" to your own machine:
ssh -X localhost

(I had originally recommended ssh -c blowfish -X localhost for lower latency, but the blowfish cipher is no longer recommended or supported.)
Then, in this "remote" login session, run Nautilus:
nautilus

Again, I emphasize that this will probably not accomplish what you want. Also, please note that there are some security considerations when openssh-server is installed. By default all user accounts can log in, so they should have good passwords, or you should disable accounts that don't, or you can use a firewall to make it so that only connections on the loopback interface (i.e., from localhost to localhost) are allowed on port 22.
Answer: Unless you're developing/fixing bugs in nautilus, there is no good reason to have more than one process for the main nautilus code and plenty of reasons not to.
The way nautilus code is laid out makes it quite cumbersome, with all parts integrated into a single monolithic program. when you load nautilus you're loading pieces that load thumbnails, change settings and save files as well as show files and folders in a window, show the desktop, and interact with a couple of other gnome subsystems.
So, it's not really possible to do what you want without reprogramming nautilus or using a different file manager.
Answer: Not really sure what you're trying to accomplish that would require separate processes. Perhaps what you want is separate windows to drag files between. You can get a second window with Ctrl-N or from the drop down File menu. You can also add folders to your Home folder launcher and if you right click the launcher icon you can select a folder that opens in its own window. Left clicking the launcher goes to an open Nautilus window and only open a new one if none is present. if Adding those folders is unfortunately still a complicated process in Unity. FYI Nautilus handles the files on your desktop so the Nautilus process is always running.


question about short selling stocks

Question: I'm trying to wrap my head around short selling. Online the explanations i found talk about borrowing a stock from your broker, selling it at a high price then waiting for the stock to drop in price and buying it back for that low price, so you can return the stock to its original owners and pocket the difference, this i get. my question is, how can you sell something that you borrowed, how can you sell something that is not yours. like for example if i borrowed my friends car, i can't sell it because i wouldn't have the pink slip, so how can i sell stocks that i don't own? Thanks in advance.
Comment: Shorting a stock is legal in the US and illegal in some. This technique of trading helps bring 'balance' to the market in which provides liquidity in times when there is none. So wrap your head around the fact that you can short a stock - just because you can.
Comment: If you are not in the USA, you may be able to trade with CFDs and go both long and short (many countries allow trading of CFDs but the USA does not). CFDs make it very easy to short stocks with no borrowing of stocks required before you short them, and because they are traded on margin you pay a small amount of interest each day you hold a long position overnight but you get paid a smaller amount of interest if you hold a short position overnight.
Answer: If you had an agreement with your friend such that you could bring back a substantially similar car, you could sell the car and return a different one to him.  The nature of shares of stock is that, within the specified class, they are the same.  It's a fungible commodity like one pound of sand or a dollar bill.  The owner doesn't care which share is returned as long as a share is returned.
I'm sure there's a paragraph in your brokerage account terms of service eluding to the possibility of your shares being included in short sale transactions.
Answer: The original owner of the shares can pledge their shares to be short, and they earn interest from lending their shares.
The conditions of this arrangement are detailed in standard agreements all market participants sign with their broker, or clearinghouse, or with the exchange, or with the self regulatory agency.
Stocks within the same class are identical, despite someone's sentiment to an old share certificate that their grandparents gave them, and as such can be sold and returned to the beneficial owner multiple times with no difference.
That is how it is supposed to work anyway, as naked shorting involves selling fictional shares that have no beneficial owner. So there are market inefficiencies in this practice, but the agreements between market participants are sound and answers your question about how.
Comment: Which broker do you have that pays you interest for lending your shares to short-sellers?
Comment: @Brick interactive brokers at one point had a section about being able to earn more interest by pledging shares. even if the broker doesn't pay the owner, the short seller pays margin
Comment: I don't know anything about interactive brokers, so I cannot say anything specific to them. Having used multiple other brokers, however, my experience is that several of your statements are much less general than you've made them sound. I've not personally seen individual owners receive interest for this or have any clear way to opt out of having their shares lent. I've also seen deals where short-selling does not require paying margin interest. The brokers have some leeway to set this up how they want, and different ones are doing it differently.
Comment: @Brick yes, the capabilities can be used strategically, I know a guy caused a massive short squeeze to get the stock price up, by disabling the ability of his shares to be lent (he either told his broker, or simply bluffed on twitter that his lawyer suggested he remove his shares from the lending pool). He owned 70% of the float so it was the majority of where the short shares could come from
Answer: My take on this is that with any short-selling contract you are engaging in, at a specified time in the future you will need to transfer ownership of the item(s) you sold to the buyer.
Whether you own the item(s) or in your case you will buy your friend's used  car in the meantime (or dig enough gold out of the ground - in the case of hedging a commodity exposure) is a matter of "trust". Hence there is normally some form of margin or credit-line involved to cover for you failing to deliver on expiry.

question about short selling stocks


What are practically computable properties of Labelled Transition Systems?

Question: I found labelled transition systems to be a good model for my application, namely there is a paper about modeling use cases using LTSs. The question is, what can be easily proven about LTSs? I would like to re-use existing solutions to see if they are useful for my appication. I would like to know what properties of LTSs (and use cases) can be easily automatically proved, so I can decide, if there is a practical counterpart to the problem for use cases.
Comment: The second result on Googling "Labelled Transition Systems": http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/ltsa/
Comment: you need to be more precise. What do you want to prove? Do you want an automatic tool for proving the properties? What is your application?
Comment: @Dave Clarke edited
Comment: Thank you all very much for your help, I haven't awaited these much help. Now I have much to read and until I am done, I cannot fairly accept any answer, unless some stands out by votes. So please be patient.
Answer: The formulas of Hennessy-Milner logic are very easy to prove about labelled transition systems. However, this logic is inexpressive enough (there is no way to state properties of infinite paths) that you will probably wish to consider some extension to it, such as linear temporal logic. LTL has a decidable, but PSPACE-complete, problem.
The SPIN model checker is a widely-used tool for model-checking LTL properties.
Answer: Another two tools, to complement the one suggested by Neel, are muCRL and mCRL2. Both toolsets have quite a range of tools for defining LTS at various levels of abstraction. State space visualisation and model checking tools are also available. The underlying logic is the propositional modal mu calculus, which is much more expressive than LTL, yet still decidable. Other useful tools allow you to perform state space reduction modulo bisimulation to get the smallest representation of your system.
Comment: Propositional modal $\mu$-calculus is decidable; I believe Street and Emerson showed this in the 80's. First-order certainly is not: it's complete for the first level of the analytic hierarchy, if I recall. BTW, I absolutely love that survey by Bradfield and Stirling. I think it's one of the best written accounts of the theory of $\mu$-calculus.
Comment: I didn't know the modal mu-calculus was decidable! Now I'm off to look at the proof in your link...
Answer: To expand on Dave's answer, the modal mu calculus is also tied to the notion of infinite parity games.  There is a very good set of lecture notes available here: http://pub.ist.ac.at/gametheory/ that present the connection.  As a side note, not only is the modal mu-calculus decidable, it's in $\mathit{NP}\cap \mathit{co\text{-}NP}$ (see lecture notes).
Comment: The model checking problem is in $NP\cap coNP$. The decision problem is $EXP$-time complete, I believe.
Comment: @MarkReitblatt I'm a bit confused now.  Wikipedia says that model checking linear modal mu calculus is PSPACE-complete, and I was under the impression that linear modal mu calculus is a proper subset of modal mu calculus and thus model checking modal mu calc should also be PSPACE-complete.  In which step did I go awry here?
Answer: CTL properties can be checked in linear time (see Clarke et al).
Long time ago I used to work in a company where many colleagues used Rulebase to verify integrated circuit designs. The property language is PSL, it is standardized by IEEE, and is a kind of CTL on steroids.
Comment: I doubt FRELIMO was modelchecked with CTL - you may wish to correct that link.
Comment: Fixed. Maybe Google Scholar changed their IDs? I don't remember seeing "FRELIMO" ever before.
Answer: In a course I got to know Isabelle, a "generic proof assisstant". It supports (total) functional programming (close to ML) and higher order logic. You can define yourself (or find) languages for LTS and LTL and prove theorems on those. I do not know if this qualifies as easy, but it certainly works.
Comment: I read (one part of) the question as "What are tools that help me prove properties of LTS?", and prove assisstants came to mind. You are certainly right, others might do the job as well, but I can't very well claim they do if I don't know that for sure, can I?
Comment: Radu, I interpolated. Note that tools such as Isabelle have the capability to automate proofs, although they might be weaker in a specific application (since they are general tools). They might be more helpful than specialised tools if you want to prove properties those tools can not automatically prove.
Comment: It is interesting to see how the term "generic proof assistant" that L. Paulson introduced in 1989 can be interpreted these days.  This is perfectly OK.  Originally, the idea was to have a generic logical framework for fumulating the Martin-Löf Type Theory of the week (which was changing a lot at that time).  Later the framework was re-used for Isabelle/ZF, again later for Isabelle/HOL, which is now the main application.
Answer: If your background is CTL interpreted over Kripke structures and you looks for something similar interpreted over LTSs, than ACTL (action-based CTL) could be interesting.
Back in 1990, R. De Nicola and F. Vaandrager introduced ACTL as an action-based CTL (Action versus state based logics for transition systems, Semantics of Systems of Concurrent Processes (1990), pp. 407-419). It has been further studied in 1993 (R. De Nicola, A. Fantechi, S. Gnesi, G. Ristori: An Action-Based Framework for Verifying Logical and Behavioural Properties of Concurrent Systems, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, Vol. 25, No. 7., pp. 761-778.) and more recently in 2008 (R. Meolic, T. Kapus, Z. Brezočnik: ACTLW - An Action-based Computation Tree Logic With Unless Operator, Information Sciences, 178 (6), pp. 1542-1557.)
Main idea of ACTL (not to be confused with a subset of CTL with the same acronym) is to have similar operators and similar algorithms for model checking as those for CTL. Moreover, operators are defined by fixed-point expressions analog to those used for CTL. The complexity (I am not sure about expresiveness) of ACTL is somewhere between HML and propositional modal μ-calculus.


Building cryptocurrency exchange behind TOR

Question: quick question, I don't have much experience with TOR(actually nothing), is it reasonable to build a mobile cryptocurrency exchange, which servers are behind TOR, so that's hard to attack for hackers ?
Answer: Tor is just an access network. You can create a service and make it available on any access network, whether exclusively or not. Operating it on Tor exclusively doesn't make it hacker-proof. You need to properly harden the server as well as all access points into your exchange (meaning your executables), and even then there could be vulnerabilities which can lead a hacker to compromise your service.
Comment: I see. You mean that by making it anonymous, the potential attacker can still perform any kind of attack( like dos, CSRF attack ) as effectively as if the service wasn't behind TOR ? Of course the server should be additionally protected is if it were on public, non-anonymous network, my question was more if TOR would be any additional obstacle for an attacker in some hacking techniques, or basically all it gives is anonymity - no hacking-protection at all.
Comment: please have a look  @anion :) at the above comment
Answer: possible? yes. reasonable? maybe, depends on your situation. you can use tor to hide the server of every website which you host but usually you use tor only if you have a reason why you want to be anonymous (or want improve the anonymity of your user). tor is no hacking-protection.
Comment: hey @anion, could you please take a look at my below comment ?


Test Management Tool that recommends test cases for next test execution?

Question: I have just finished the Machine Learning course and was wondering if there is a Test Management tool that learns over time which test cases to run for the given project and eventually recommends a test suite for a next test execution?
Answer: Microsoft's Visual Studio can collect details of which pieces of code are executed by which tests. This data can then be used when code is changed to suggest tests that should be rerun. You could try some Web searches for terms such as "Microsoft test impact data" and "MTM recommended tests".
Answer: I am not aware of any.
But one project in python-coverage tool compares diff of the change with info about which unit tests cover which code and runs the unit test which cover the changed code only (instead of full suite).
Tool in not trying to be smart, because in Zen of Python we have koan: "In face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess." Reason is: guess can be as often good as misleading, and there is no automated way to tell which is which. Report the ambiguity and exit instead.
Answer: I wanted to create one myself (worked with ML on a project before) but this had to be connected with source code and I figured many people would hesitate sharing their repositories.
I'll be interested too in looking an existing tool that can do this.
Answer: Currently Silk Central test management can analyze your keyword tests and check which ones are used most frequently together.
This then is used to recommend the next keyword in your keyword sequence during test creation.
All this is explained in the datasheet here:
https://www.microfocus.com/media/data-sheet/BDS-Silk-Central.pdf

Automatically analyzing the structure of existing keyword-driven tests, Silk Central recommends likely keywords for the currently edited keyword-driven test

The keyword library builder is supported using Java, so you can use this on your Selenium scripts if required.
Answer: Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf software, but have a look at the field of search-based software engineering (SBSE), especially its subfield search-based software testing (SBST).
For instance, in his talk on SBST, Mark Harman explains how automatic test suite selection can be done with respect to multiple objectives:

previously found faults
code coverage
execution time
…

He also refers to Shin Yoo's work, which includes very good papers on that topic. As an example, "Faster Fault Finding at Google Using Multi Objective Regression Test Optimisation" reports results from a project that integrated search-based test optimization into Google's regression testing processes.
Answer: I think that currently this is done mostly through tools providing analysis of
Code Coverage
Tools detailed at https://stackoverflow.com/a/195027/631619
Code Coverage is a measurement of how many lines/blocks/arcs of your code are executed while the automated tests are running.
Obviously you would be interested in the code that is not executed by any test so the tool needs to show that.
Sophisticated Tools will include examination of:

scoping
dependencies
function code length
core vs. optional processes
number of times function is called
whether a value is returned from a function
use / abuse / suggestion of design patterns
number and type of parameters and use in logic paths

so that they can grade code and not just provide pass/fail


Bodyweight Bicep Excercises

Question: Are there any bodyweight bicep exercises? Or any form of bicep exercise that can be performed without equipment?
Answer: Chin-ups
Chin-ups pull-ups pull-ups pull-ups chin-ups pull-ups, chin-ups chin-ups. Chin-ups or pull-ups, as well as chin-ups, or chin-ups and pull-ups, alternating between chin-ups and pull-ups on different days, chin-ups chin-ups chin-ups, pull-ups chin-ups, chins, pulls, chinning and pulling. Specifically, chin-ups and pull-ups.
Chin-up negatives, chin-up holds at the top, chin-up holds at the bottom, chin-up Frenchies, chin-up ladders, maximum repetitions of chin-ups, many many sets of just a few chin-ups, narrow grip chin-ups, wide grip chin-ups, alternated grip chin/pull-ups, towel chin-ups, pull-ups leaping to another bar, chin-ups with a slide to each side at the top, chin-ups with extra weight, weighted pull-ups, greasing the groove with chin-ups throughout the day, chin-ups with short rest periods, chin-ups with long rest periods, chin-ups in a circuit with dips, ring chin-ups, clapping pull-ups, muscle-ups, 50 chin-ups a day no matter how you split 'em up, fifty chin-ups in as few sets as possible, as many chin-ups as you can do in twenty minutes, slow chin-ups, explosive chest-to-bar chin-ups, chin-ups with a little kip on the last rep or two, chin-ups with a friend helping for a few extra reps, chin-up contests, chin-ups alone at home, chin-ups on alternating days, chin-ups at the beginning of the workout, chin-ups throughout the workout, chin-ups at the end of the workout, chin-ups for biceps, chin-ups for justice, chin-ups for God and country, chin-ups for looking good, chin-ups for athletics, chin-ups just for you, chin-up gumbo, chin-up lasagna, chin-up ice cream.
In conclusion, chin-ups. (And pull-ups.)
Comment: I'm confused.  What exercise(s) are you recommending?  ;)
Comment: Don't these primarily target the dorsal muscles?
Answer: There are upper body movements that involve the biceps, but none that isolate them specifically like you can with dumbbells or machines.  Examples include:

Chin Ups
Inverse Rows or high bar variation

Basically anything that involves pulling will involve the biceps, and more so if you do it with a suppinated grip.
Answer: Chin-ups and pull-ups. If you don't have a pull-up bar, buy one, or go outside, parks and playgrounds will often have such facilities.
If you don't have a pull-up bar, or while you're waiting until it arrives, you can do isometric bicep exercises, using eg. a table (putting your hands under and pulling it up) or a towel (putting it eg. under your toes and pulling up).
If you mean bicep exercises with absolutely no equipment, just your body, then there's not much. You can still do isometric exercises, eg. pulling your legs, or knee to your chest (standing on one leg or lying on the floor) while simultaneously pushing your knees away. Another thing that works the bicep is turning your forearms while keeping the elbows fixed and bent.
Note, that the biceps are stabilizers in most exercises where your body is supported on your hands (push-ups, handstands etc.) that is, they don't work much.
But none of this compares in intensity to pull-ups (the last couple of exercises I mentioned are mostly used in rehab).

Bodyweight Bicep Excercises


What's a good replacement for the phrase "best practice"?

Question: In technical writing the phrase "best practice" is often used to suggest that something is more accurate than other things. However, that's often very subjective, requires specific context, and suggested practices change over time.
In the software development field, there have been some strong arguments against ever using the phrase.
What's a good replacement?
Comment: Best practice typically reads as "under ideal circumstances", and basically is an allowance for some subjectivity when being "by the books" is not helpful (I.e. Best Practice is to not cool a Nuclear Reactor with Sea Water... however, when you got no fresh water and your Nuclear Reactor has a fever, you can't be salty about how salty the water is... cause its still better than not cooling it at all.).
Answer: The most common practice, or a common practice.
It may be instance specific: The "best practice" on one instance might be "the safest practice" or "a basic safety practice".
In some other instance, the "best practice" might be "the quickest practice" or "a good performing practice".
In yet another, "best practice" might be "the most expedient practice."
I'd suggest replacing "best" with something more specific and accurate to the context.
Comment: I like "a common practice". "The most common practice" seems subject to the same issues as Tim B points out in his answer.
Comment: Thanks. Replacing best with something more specific and accurate is a good suggestion. I'm also thinking that rephrasing may be appropriate, like instead of "what's the best practice" using "what's a good way to" or "what process do you use".
Answer: This might seem a little too simple a solution, but I tend to use the phrase 'Good Practice' in lieu of 'Best Practice' when I write technical documentation. Sometimes I even use 'Better Practice'.
Best Practice as a term is subjective primarily because it seeks to be objective; by that I mean that it implies that the writer knows all there is about all the possible combinations and permutations of a given process and knows what 'best' is. The subjectivity comes in however due to the fact that 'best' is a very imprecise term in that it depends on what your objectives are in order for something to be crowned as 'best'.
If you seek to reduce your costs, not providing services to the country where the infrastructure costs more to set up and maintain for a smaller set of the population might be 'best practice'. On the other hand, if you seek to be an inclusive service provider, best practice would be the exact opposite. Most people instinctively know this even if they can't articulate it.
Good practice, on the other hand, doesn't imply a definitive knowledge of the domain and is clearly a subjective term meaning that everyone knows what to expect when you say that. Also, because it is subjective, the use of the term is designed to force the writer to define the context along the way. The same can be said for Better Practice, which is a comparative term;

Good practice would be to ensure that you put the widgets together in advance to save time at point of sale in a custom assembly environment, unless you seek to impress your customers with how customiseable your product is in which case better practice would be to have the components all in easy reach at point of sale, laid out in an order which reflects the usual method of assembly.

A strong part of my thinking in using these terms is understanding that consultants are no longer hired (if they ever were) to solve problems that are already known and understood. People actually want someone who can design a bespoke process that reflects the specific problems that their business faces and as such, terms like 'Best Practice' are frowned upon because it implies that your business and its problems are the same as everyone else and that the business owner could have done a google search and saved themselves a lot of money. Even if that is the case, people don't like hearing that.
So, good practice implies a bespoke solution to your specific needs, and better practice implies incremental improvement in your practices. Of course, this advice only works if you seek to demonstrate and articulate your understanding of the business you're speaking to and it's 'unique' complex problems.
Comment: Thanks for your detailed response! I like the context setting of this might be "a good practice [in this case]" and "this would be a better practice [in a different case]"
Answer: The term "best practice" means ideally, although the entire US has a baseless hatred of adverbs.
Depending on context you may replace the phrase with the word 'optimal'.
"For optimal performance speakers should be between 4-8 ohms".


Would a search engine be allowed to prioritize their content?

Question: I notice that when I type anything into google, google-related searches appear first. I know this is probably not what's happening, but it begs the question, could a search engine prioritize its own products and services legally?
Answer: Due to competition/antitrust laws it can be illegal, more so if the search engine is dominant in the market.
This has actually been realized in the EU where they fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing their market dominance and favouring their own Google Shopping service in search results. For further information, that fine has been specifically addressed on this site.
In the US, this has not yet come to such a dramatic penalty, but there have been investigations. The FTC has investigated similar search results manipulation among other antitrust issues, but ultimately decided not to file a lawsuit as the changes to the search algorithms "could be plausibly justified as innovations that improved Google's product." Following this inaction, as of November 2017, the state of Missouri is also investigating Google on the same issue.
I'm not certain if manipulating search results on its own is illegal, but with market dominance (like what Google has), it certainly is.
Answer: Outside of monopoly. anti-trust and anti-competition laws, Google is not bound by law or regulation to rank search results in any way other than by their own prerogative. Google (and Yahoo and DuckDuckGo and other search engines) are private businesses and thus can present their search results any way they choose. They can show any search results they want to appear at the top, either automatically via an algorithm, or manually by editing search results. You agree to the Google Terms of Service and their methods to provide you search results when you use their service.
Now, to be clear, Google advertises that their search engine algorithm PageRank (Wikipedia) presents search results in order of the number of incoming links to those sites; that is one of the metrics they say is built into their search algorithm, and that metric automatically determines the value of a site and thus its higher or lower ranking in search results. By automating their search and disavowing any manual edits by people, Google claims to be impartial in their search and they say that gives much higher quality search results. And that algorithm may be one of the reasons Google has ~75% market share in search.
Google also presents advertisements at the top of SERPs (search engine results pages), so be sure you are not confusing those with the list of search results. Again, placing ads on SERPs is Google's prerogative; they are a private business.


Could content checked by Copyscape still be a duplicate?

Question: I mean if I check using copyscape when buying articles is it going to be fool-proof way of knowing if it was never published on internet? I understand it would not catch those articles who haven't been indexed yet by say Google (within 6 weeks or so).
Answer: Foolproof? No. But it does use Google's API so it is getting the largest set of data to compare to which is a good thing. So basically any content that is not blocked to Google's crawlers or has not been indexed yet should be caught with Copyscape.
Answer: Copyscape definately is one of the leaders out there although in additon you could also Google select quotes from articles of interest to see how many results come up.
For example you can copy paste something like "I highly recommend resturaunt x in NYC for high quality goods" (with the quotes) or some fairly unique phrase that you wouldn't think of randomly and gauge the results to get an additional idea.
Having a reliable source for content also is crucial. Sites like Associated Content are typically spammy articles and since they're free, it's copied quite often. Using a copywriter or going to a niche area however should provide better copy.
Comment: It is a crude way...


Are deep learning models parametric? Or non-parametric?

Question: I don't think there can be one answer to all the deep learning models. WHich of the deep learning models are parametric and which are non-parametric and why?
Comment: Ask yourself a question: is the number of parameters increasing as you process new training examples during training? If so, the method is non-parametric.
Comment: Given your first sentence, wouldn't your second sentence be a better title?
Comment: Could you define what you mean by parametric and non-parametric? Its not as clear cut as some might assume, see this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonparametric_statistics for an example of the ambiguity
Answer: Deep learning models are generally parametric - in fact they have a huge number of parameters, one for each weight that is tuned during training.
As the number of weights generally stays constant, they technically have fixed degrees of freedom. However, as there are generally so many parameters they may be seen to emulate non-parametric.
Gaussian processes (for example) use each observation as a new weight and as the number of points goes to infinity so too do the number of weights (not to be confused with hyper parameters).
I say generally because there are so many different flavours of each model. For example low rank GPs have a bounded number of parameters which are inferred by the data and I'm sure someone has been making some type of non-parametric dnn at some research group!
Comment: most people are confused that generally, NNs are Non-para models because they do some kind feature selection as the data points increase, hilarious!, then Linear regression with L1- regularization is also Non-parametric, what a disaster..!. Thank you, @j__ for answering it clearly. I didn't find a clear & concise answer anywhere so far. If you see any weblinks/research paper on this topic please post it here, would great to read more.
Comment: I think this answer is good, but it could benefit strongly by a definition of what the answer means by non-parametric. As the wiki-page on nonparametric statistics says, there is no general consensus on what non-parametric means.
Answer: A standard deep neural network (DNN) is, technically speaking, parametric since it has a fixed number of parameters. However, most DNNs have so many parameters that they could be interpreted as nonparametric; it has been proven that in the limit of infinite width, a deep neural network can be seen as a Gaussian process (GP), which is a nonparametric model [Lee et al., 2018].
Nevertheless, let's strictly interpret DNNs as parametric for the rest of this answer.
Some examples of parametric deep learning models are:

Deep autoregressive network (DARN)
Sigmoid belief network (SBN)
Recurrent neural network (RNN), Pixel CNN/RNN
Variational autoencoder (VAE), other deep latent Gaussian models e.g. DRAW

Some examples of nonparametric deep learning models are:

Deep Gaussian process (GPs)
Recurrent GP
State space GP
Hierarchical Dirichlet process
Cascaded Indian Buffet process

Image from Shakir Mohamed's tutorial on deep generative models.
References:

"Deep Neural Networks as Gaussian Processes" (Lee et al., 2018)
Answer: Deep learning models should not be considered parametric. Parametric models are defined as models based off an a priori assumption about the distributions that generate the data. Deep nets do not make assumptions about the data generating process, rather they use large amounts of data to learn a function that maps inputs to outputs. Deep learning is non-parametric by any reasonable definition.
Comment: Training deep learning models has weak a priori assumptions about the input data distribution: many hyper-parameters have defaults for - and are tuned for - standardised data. Does this count?
Answer: Deutsch and Journel (1997, pp. 16-17) opined on the misleading nature of the term "non-parametric".  They suggested that ≪...the terminology "parameter-rich" model should be retained for indicator based models instead of the traditional but misleading qualifier "non-parametric".≫
"Parameter rich" may be an accurate description, but "rich" has an emotional loading that lends a positive view which may not always be warranted (!).
Some professors may yet persist who refer collectively to neural nets, random forests, and the like as all being "non-parametric". The increased opacity and piecewise nature of neural nets (especially with the spread of ReLU activation functions) makes them non-parameteric-esque.


Is having elaborate metaphors ever a bad thing?

Question: Is having elaborate metaphors a bad thing in a short story (for the purposes of the story being accepted by a magazine)? How can I know if my metaphors are too elaborate?
Comment: Welcome to Writing.SE Yukang Jiang, glad you found us.  Please check out our [tour] and [help].  We're different from other sites because we are very picky about questions and answers.  Unfortunately, critiquing someone's writing is off topic.  You might be able to edit this into a question about using metaphors (though do see what others have written) but, as it stands now, it's likely to be closed.
Comment: Nice work on editing to make this an on topic question.
Answer: Most of your metaphors do seem a bit confusing.  Your first example compares parallel rays of sunlight to entrails, but entrails aren't parallel.   Your second example compares newly formed clouds to transparent glass, but even the wispiest of clouds are far from transparent, they are opaque at best.  Your third example "exhibitionist, twilight colors"  brings to mind Ray Stevens streaking across a basketball court rather than the romantic setting you probably had in mind.
Th last one is fine. A crescent moon piercing the night makes sense, doesn't contradict itself and I can visualize it perfectly.
The problem with the others may be that you are trying to force them in, or not visualizing them well enough to properly portray them.  Don't use metaphors just for the sake of using metaphors, they should be used to create an image in your readers head that they can relate to, thus taking your description from your words into Their  heads.  I can not relate to rays of light looking like entrails.  But I could relate them to ribbons, or rivers or long brushstrokes.
Close your eyes and picture your setting.  What does it look like?  What does it remind you of?  If you were describing it to someone who could not see it, how would you make them understand what it looked like?
Also, you should consider deleting about 90% of your adjectives.  This is what's making your writing long winded and overly descriptive.  To describe you beams of light as glowing, parallel and lemon colored is more than your reader needs or wants to know.  take it easy on them, don't give them so much to process all at once.
Comment: Your rhythm is fine for the most part. Yes exhibitionist/exhibitionism is often used to describe scenes of an awkward nature, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exhibitionism.  You can defend your word choices if you wish but its not you or your me that you have to convince, its you readers.
Comment: You are correct.  I visualized the more risque meaning, but not everyone will.
Comment: Yes, I was not going for the metaphors making sense, I was going for them sounding spectacular. You didn't mention rhythm. Forgive me for asking, but how was the rhythm? Also, can you elaborate on the third example not making sense. Is "exhibitionist" used for awkward scenes? I do have an argument for sentence #1 & #2 though. For #1, entrails could mean the insides of anything; doesn't have to be a living thing. For #2, they are newly formed clouds and it could be hyperbole.
Comment: hmm.. but when I go to www.dictionary.com, there's 2 definitions of exhibitionist, one associated with exhibitionism and one that isn't. Keep in mind exhibitionist existed historically as a word *before* exhibitionism. 1820s vs 1880s/1890s. But I guess you're right history doesn't matter much for a modern English language. That could probably be the reason why it *sounds* fine to me.
Answer: I read your question before your examples were edited out, and would like to comment on them a bit, but I won't. It wouldn't be fair to the question as it is now. So, to address your current question of 'is using elaborate metaphors a bad thing' my answer is: No, not inherently. BUT you have to do it carefully to pull it off. So how do you know if you're doing it well? Here are some things I think you should look out for when writing your own stories and are thinking of putting in metaphors.
First, does the metaphor have any meaning? By this, I mean does it paint a picture, or are you only using it because it sounds nice. If it sounds nice, but gives absolutely no hint of an image or emotion to the reader and they just end up sitting there without a clue what your saying, then I believe it has failed as a metaphor. Read over your metaphors and ask yourself if you can actually visualise any of them. As a good example of a metaphor, the opening to The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes has (in my opinion) some of the best use of metaphors in written work. Can wind really be 'a torrent of darkness', or the moon a literal 'ghostly galleon'? Of course not, but it paints an image, one of gusty winds at night blowing along the hills, and the moon big and bright floating among the clouds. To use one of your (now deleted) metaphors as a not-so-good example, you used the line 'Beams of glowing light emanated from the windows in parallel rays, their lemon colored entrails spilling out over the chestnut lined pews of the monastery.' Here, 'lemon colored entrails' is a metaphor. But does it paint a picture of light spilling into a room? I don't think it does. From what I know of anatomy, light does not 'spill' in the same way as a gutted animal or human's entrails would. Here, you'd be much better off just saying 'Beams of glowing light emanated from the windows in parallel rays, spilling onto the chestnut pews of the monastery.'
Second, if your metaphors are painting pictures successfully, the next question is whether you're using them TOO MUCH. A metaphor here and there can be very powerful tools, but using them to describe everything that each character sees, thinks and feels, as well in almost every paragraph of narration, is far too much. A reader may very quickly get sick of reading and just want to scream 'Just tell it to me straight already!'. Moderation is key.
And lastly, keep in mind that prose is not poetry. There's a reason I used The Highwayman as an example of well done metaphors. I think metaphors are much better suited to poetry. Perhaps you'd be better off learning how to write well constructed poetry that could accomodate your flowery writing style. If you really do want to keep writing short stories and novels, remember: Does the metaphor having meaning, and are you using them too much?


LEGO Technic Unimog crane will not turn

Question: I finished the Unimog from LEGO 2 or 3 years ago, and I noticed this issue, but now I'm getting pretty angry because I still can't find the problem.  It seems to be that when I use the instructions for the function that should turn the crane, it doesn't turn.  All other functions work but unfortunately the turning, one of the coolest functions, does nothing.  Any recommendations?
Answer: When rotation / movements is blocked in a pneumatic set, this is often caused by the routing of the hoses.
Remove the crane and check if its possible to rotate the crane by hand. If not, check if the hoses have enough slack to allow movement, or try the re-route them again.
Answer: This can have many causes, starting at the gearbox, followed by the transmission of torque to the turntable, the build of the turntable itself and as Joost wrote, the pneumatic hoses or other components can also interfere with the correct operation.
I would recommend following the path of the torque from the motor to the gear that turns the turntable and keeping an eye open for any locking pieces or possible sources of extreme friction.
If you can't find the cause, you could take some highly detailed photos of the aforementioned areas and I'll gladly check them with my Unimog to see if I can spot a difference.

LEGO Technic Unimog crane will not turn


Can i use a SSR for switching a fluorescent light?

Question: Can I use a SSR for switching a fluorescent light on or off? Specifically, can the SSR last for a long time, and can it withstand a very large number of on/off switchings? I would also appreciate a sample circuit related to this, or references.
Answer: Yes, some people use a solid-state relay (SSR) to switch a fluorescent light on and off.
"Control Fluorescent Lights with a Laser Pointer and an Arduino" (and some SSRs)(a);
"SSR to switch a·fluorescent light"(b),
etc.
Older fluorescent lights draw 5 to 10 times their long-term average current for many seconds when "striking" the bulb at first turn on. (c d)
So solid-state relays that are inadequately rated for only 2 or 3 times that long-term average current will fail pretty quickly.
That may explain why many people (e f) say we should avoid using SSRs for fluorescent lights.
If you get a solid-state relay that is rated to handle that full striking current,
then there's no mechanical bits to wear out and the SSR should last for a long time.
For example, the manufacturer of Releco relays seems to think driving a "2 A fluorescent bulb" requires a SSR rated at 3 A. g h i
A few fluorescent light ballasts have a "control" input to turn it on and off directly,
which may work better than completely connecting and disconnecting the power.(g h j)
I'm assuming you want to turn it on for a while, then turn it off for at least a few minutes, then later turn it on for a while.
"Dimming" a fluorescent light by rapidly turning it on and off many times a second is a completely different question.
(Do we have a question here on that topic, or am I mis-remembering
How do you dim a streetlight bulb?
?)
You might consider some off-the-shelf gadget designed for turning on and off fluorescent lights remotely. h i j k