Vehicle vibrates when driving past 120kmh, this is after doing a routine clutch change on a Opel Corsa 1.4i

Question: I had a new clutch kit along with the cam belt changed in my 2007 Opel Corsa as  routine maintainance. The car was driving well all along... even did 160kmh while driving to the mechanics workshop.
After the new clutch was fitted and service done on the vehicle it started to have a serious vibration when I drove passed 80kmh.
The mechanics inspected it and then changed the front Engine mount.
The problem was slightly better since the vibrations now started at 100kmh.
The following day we had the ball-joints replaced after going to check at alignment and they advised that they are the culprits of the vibration, everything else was okay.
After replacing the ball-joints the vibration now starts at 120kmh.
Can you please give an educated guess as to what may be the cause of the vibration since the vehicle was fine all along.
Answer: It could be:

new parts
parts removed and replaced as part of the service work
parts that may have been close to worn out that may have been stressed past their limits by the work
Or it could even be coincidental - your car is reasonably old and things can just fail.

Unfortunately this is just too broad. Sounds like the mechanics are going through diagnostics to figure out where the problem is.
Comment: The mechanics were very surprised at the vibration of the vehicle. Some parts may be experiencing stress as the engine now pumps out more power but what baffles everyone is that they can not identify the source of the vibration with certainty.
Comment: Nothing in the described works (clutch replacement, cambelt replacement) would alter the power output of the engine
Answer: If the vibrations are a result of the work done to the drivetrain, you'd imagine that the car would vibrate when stationary, in neutral gear, clutch out, being revved to the same engine speed as is required to do 100km/h (etc)
Given that the vibrations are related to motion and are reliably producible at particular speeds, you need to be looking at components that (rotate) when the vehicle is moving, and that could go out of balance.
This is where something as inane as "the work-experience kid bumped your car into the kerb and knocked a balancing weight off the wheel, when he was moving it around the shop" could well be the problem..
For the time it takes, I'd start with the easy things like checking the wheels are still in balance
Comment: I second the wheel weight possibility: I just had all four wheels balanced to fix similar symptoms.


Does the size of control surfaces affect maneuverability, and if they are smaller, is it easier to stall?

Question: Does the size of control surfaces effect maneuverability and make it easier to stall?
Comment: As the lift force produced by a control surface is proportional to its surface, the manoeuvrability is affected by their size.
Answer: There are at least 3 possible cases and unfortunately your question doesn't tell which one you would consider valid.
The maneuverability (the maximum rate of rotation?) can be measured by the moment of the force exerted by the surface at the CG.
Let's consider the area of the control surface is smaller, and...

All other parameters are unchanged, in particular surface airfoil, center of pressure, and angle of attack:

As the currently selected answer tells, the maximum lift available from the control surface is lower, hence the maximum moment is lower, and the maneuverability is reduced.

As the airfoil and the angle of attack are unchanged, the stall characteristics are unaffected.

This theoretical case is unlikely to be seen as the designer would certainly compensate the reduction of the area by some other change.

The surface is moved to a location further from the CG to maintain the moment with the smaller lift force:

Neither maneuverability nor stall characteristics are affected.

The angle of attack is increased to generate more lift and compensate for the smaller area:

Maneuverability is decreased as the maximum lift obtained with the maximum angle of attack is decreased.
Stall is easier to trigger as the angle of attack (for an equal moment) is closer to the stall angle.
Comment: any of the four cases!
Comment: If by 3 you mean increased _deflection_, then the airplane stall will be (more or less) unaffected. (I suspect the OP meant airplane stall). It _may_ be easier to stall the control surface itself, but not in all cases (e.g. when pulling up near the airplane stall). And if we don't approach surface stall, then the overall control efficiency (and thus manoeuvrability in this sense) can be pretty much equal.
Comment: @Zeus: Thanks for the comment (I believe that's correct for elevators, but is less applicable to canards). I agree my answer is not a great one and needs to be refined.


Can metaphors be used for other purposes than for stylistic effect and to form an allegory?

Question: I was wondering if there were other uses for metaphors other than forming an allegory and for stylistic effect, that is, adding more flair to a description that would be otherwise dull. I've done some research and honestly I wasn't able to find anything that would suggest me otherwise.
Comment: If "allegory" covers everything with a meaning, and "style" covers everything without meaning, what else is there? This may not be a limit of metaphors, but that you have created only 2 possible categories.
Comment: @wetcircuit - Right, "style" + "substance" seem to pretty much cover the waterfront together, don't they :)
Answer: Your two categories cover a whole lot of ground between the two of them.  But there's at least one other usage that comes readily to mind that isn't really encompassed by either of those.
You can use metaphors to suggest the frame of mind or unique perspective of your POV character.  Consider these two different descriptions of the same strand of trees in a swamp.

The trees stood, like so many pale, bare and slender legs, wading in a pool.
The trees stood, mired in the mud; silent, white-robed pallbearers at a funeral.

It's not exactly allegory, but you get a entirely different sense of mood and outlook with the two different metaphors.  (The first is intended to suggest a horny teenager, the second one is someone depressed and grief-ridden.)
Comment: @wetcircuit They are playing a functional role in building a concrete sense of character and mood.  Each one is intended to tell you something very specific.  Style is typically non-functional (although I suppose you could describe this as the exploitation of style for substantive aims).
Comment: Can you say how these examples are not "stylistic effect"…? (I'm not sure)
Comment: It's both… maybe that makes a 3rd possibility? (I'm upvoting for the attempt to fix a zen koan)
Answer: A metaphor allows you to explain something complex, abstract or unfamliar to the reader in a way that they have a good chance of understanding or relating to. You can also use them to evoke sensory memories to better convey a more realised experience, humans rely extensively on episodic memory and metaphors play into this:

Sam followed the sound of coughing and broke down the door with his axe, the bedroom beyond was a furnace, he couldn't believe anyone could be alive in there.

vs:

Sam followed the sound of coughing and broke down the door with his axe, the bedroom beyond was extremely hot, he couldn't believe anyone could be alive in there.

technically both are accurate and saying the same thing - but the metaphor version gives the reader something sensory to relate to, we know it's not a literal furnace but we're conveying how the room feels to them. Readers are more likely to have experienced the heat coming from a furnace then they are to have experienced walking into a bedroom in a burning house. And they will remember what that felt like, and at the very least they will likely know that furnaces are really, really hot things. Just saying it's "extremely hot" means you're pushing the mental load on to the reader to work out what something was like when it was what they would describe as "extremely hot" and try and fit in those sensations into the reading process which unconsciously will detract from the flow for them.
They also allow you to convey multiple aspects of something using very few words - in the above example the word "furnace" encapsulates that the heat was dry, there were flames everywhere and that it was life-threatening all in one go and allows for snappier pacing as required. Compare with:

Sam followed the sound of coughing and broke down the door with his axe, the bedroom beyond was full of an extreme, dry heat, far hotter than was safe, flames were everywhere and he couldn't believe anyone could be alive in there.

It's conveying all those attributes but takes 10 more words to do it, and in situation where you're wanting to convey a lot of simultaneous sensations taking lots of words to do it creates an artificial sense of delay. Not to mention if you're trying to portray a very short interval of time or a fast-moving situation you're dispelling the sense of urgency.
Answer: A metaphor can also be used to explain something in familiar terms. For example, when a popular science book describes Eisenstein gravity due to bent space  by using the metaphor of a rubber sheet indented by various objects, with the dent representing the "gravity well" around a body. This particular metaphor has become so common it is a cliche, partly because it seems to work very well. Similarly, it used to be common to describe the structure of an atom as a miniature solar system, with the nuclear as the star, and the electrons as planets. Changes in our understanding of atoms has made that metaphor obsolete, but it is still used in describing the now outdated Bohr theory of atomic structure.
Also, a metaphor can be used to convey symbolism, but not all symbolism is allegory.
Answer: I say it in partial jest, but if the question is to be taken literally, then I see an answer outside of style and allegory.
A metaphor can be used to extend the word count of a piece of writing. Consider that each grain of sand is minuscule on its own, yet a beach full of sand is a massive stretch of time, of habitat, of vacation and relaxation. Similarly, each snowflake may be a harmless kiss from the icy heavens above, but a sky full of angry snowflakes can kill.
Metaphors are grains of sand and snowflakes. And, they can turn your term paragraph into a term paper. (I've certainly seen students try.)
Answer: Metaphors help me think.  I may not know how to do XYZ, but if everything is related to (for example) baking, then I understand it a lot more.


How can I restrict only iPad to be connectable to USB port of Mac?

Question: I would like to allow iPads to be connected to Mac for provisioning of applications on the devices, but would also like to prohibit any other device from being connected to USB port for security reasons. Would you please let me know what is the mechanism to be adopted to achieve this?
Answer: There are two basic solutions for restricting access to computer ports -- software-based, and hardware-based.
A software-based solution would probably be best in your case, but it might not be cheap.  There are security software packages available to block access to devices that are not on a "whitelist" that you establish.  One commercial example is Endpoint Protector.
Hardware-based solutions involve physically blocking access to certain ports.  The "meathead" way to do this is using epoxy.  People have done this, but it is generally not recommended as it is completely irreversible.  You would glue an iPad adapter cable into one port, then fill the other ports with a putty (to prevent epoxy from getting inside the computer where you don't want it) and glue over them.
There are a few USB port "locks" on the market that physically block USB ports -- for example, Kensington USB Port Lock ($15).  But you'd still have to epoxy an iPad adapter cable to your computer to allow iOS devices to connect while preventing access to other devices.


Anapanasati in Pali script

Question: Does anyone know how Anapanasati is written in Pali script? I failed to find a dictionary online that could give the correct script form.
Thanks!
Comment: Do you mean with correct diacritics?  Pali doesn't have it's own script.  It was written down in whatever alphabet happened to be available.
Answer: The Anapanasati Sutta in Pali is here: https://suttacentral.net/pi/mn118
It appears there is no Pali script, per the comment made to the question:

Emperor Ashoka erected a number of pillars with his edicts in at least
  three regional Prakrit languages in Brahmi script, all of which
  are quite similar to Pali. Historically, the first written record of
  the Pali canon is believed to have been composed in Sri Lanka, based
  on a prior oral tradition. As per the Mahavamsa (the chronicle of Sri
  Lanka), due to a major famine in the country Buddhist monks wrote down
  the Pali canon during the time of King Vattagamini in 100 BC. The
  transmission of written Pali has retained a universal system of
  alphabetic values, but has expressed those values in a stunning
  variety of actual scripts. In Sri Lanka, Pali texts were recorded in
  Sinhala script. Other local scripts, most prominently Khmer, Burmese,
  and in modern times Thai (since 1893), Devanāgarī and Mon script (Mon
  State, Burma) have been used to record Pali. Since the 19th century,
  Pali has also been written in the Roman script. An alternate scheme
  devised by Frans Velthuis, called the Velthuis scheme (see § Text in
  ASCII) allows for typing without diacritics using plain ASCII methods,
  but is arguably less readable than the standard IAST system, which
  uses diacritical marks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali#Writing

'Pāli' is not a language, it is the name of the mūla (source)
  Tripiṭaka text, as distinguished from its commentary, which is called
  Aṭṭhakathā - this distinction between Pāli and Aṭṭhakathā only makes
  sense in the commentarial tradition - it was not (and should not be)
  used as the name of the language.
The language of the Theravāda tripiṭaka is actually an artificially
  standardized (sanskritized) form of the original buddhist canon, which
  was written in the early Kharoṣṭhī script (only fragments of which
  survive today). Kharoṣṭhī was greatly unsuitable for writing sanskrit,
  and that is why sanskrit words written in Kharoṣṭhī appears like
  another language altogether (which is broadly called Middle-Indic, but
  is known by specific modern names like Pāli & Gāndhārī based on the
  script they are written in).
The oldest script in use was Kharoṣṭhī. The second-oldest script was
  Brāhmī. Sanskrit was written initially in Kharoṣṭhī (which did not
  distinguish between long and short vowels, conjunt consonants and
  simple consonants etc). So it became very difficult to read texts
  written in this script, even today western scholars are breaking their
  heads over whether Kharoṣṭhī texts are really in sanskrit or some new
  language (which in 1946 some have named as Gāndhāri, although such an
  independent language was never recognized at any point of time in BCE
  India). Anyways an improved script arose which was called Brāhmī
  (which did distinguish between short and long vowels) but still did
  not enable writing conjunct consonants properly (and scholars have
  named this language an early version of Pāli, which again was never
  known by that name in ancient India). With the passage of a few
  centuries, Brahmi was perfected for sanskrit, but the old ways of
  writing (which we call Gāndhāri & Pāli today) did not die out, they
  kept evolving into what became independent languages called the
  prākṛta languages (or prākrits)
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-script-of-pali-language

The Kharosthi script, also spelled Kharoshthi or Kharoṣṭhī, is an
  ancient script used in ancient Gandhara and ancient India
  (primarily modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan) to write the Gandhari
  Prakrit and Sanskrit. It was popular in Central Asia as well. An
  abugida, it was in use from the middle of the 3rd century BCE until it
  died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE. It was also in
  use in Bactria, the Kushan Empire, Sogdia and along the Silk Road,
  where there is some evidence it may have survived until the 7th
  century in the remote way stations of Khotan and Niya.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharosthi
Comment: Oh, wow. Interesting, so there's no actual written text script for Pali. It's an oral language only, written in other languages' text.
Comment: thanks. it looks like that is the case. it was new news to me, also, regards
Answer: Use commentary to translate it:
Ānāpānassatikathā in http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/e0101n.mul8.xml
For the concentration meditation parts (first 4 parts form 16 parts):

Herein a monk — having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree,
  or to a bodily seclusion building — sits down folding his legs
  crosswise, holding his body erect and setting mindfulness to the fore
  [lit: breathes at nose tip]. Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful
  he breathes out.

"When he breathing in long, he contemplates 'I breathing in long';
  Or when he breathing out long, he contemplates 'I breathing out
  long'.
When he breathing in short, he contemplates 'I breathing in short';
  Or when he breathing out short, he contemplates 'I breathing out
  short'.
He trains himself 'I am breathing in and sensitively contemplating
  the entire breath in'. Or he trains himself 'I am breathing out and
  sensitively contemplating the entire breath out'.
He trains himself 'I am breathing gentle breath in'. Or he trains
  himself 'I am breathing gentle breath in'.

cr. http://tipitaka.wikia.com

Anapanasati in Pali script


If an exoplanet transit we are seeing is 13000 light years away, are we seeing a 13000-year-old orbit?

Question: If a star is 13000 light years away, doesn't that mean we are seeing 13000-year-old light?  If it does, then does that mean when we discover a planet with dimming star light, we are seeing a planet that is 13000 years old?  Are we seeing a 13k-year-old orbit?
Comment: Just to be clear this isn't me looking down on the question, I think its great to be inquisitive. But - what is it that makes you think it would be otherwise?
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Is the light we see from stars extremely old?](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/646/is-the-light-we-see-from-stars-extremely-old)  also https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/32889/how-can-we-see-stars-if-they-are-hundred-years-of-light-far-from-the-earth?rq=1 and https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/28207/how-is-distance-in-light-years-converted-to-years-back-in-time?rq=1
Comment: This depends on what your understanding of "now" is. To me it is a nonsensical question. "Now" at this planet is 13000 light years away. It is still "now". If there is separation of space, there is separation of time. Was here, where I am sitting, also here yesterday? Yes? No? If you intend to climb down that particular rabbit hole; consider this: Likely, the only reasonable definition you'll be able to set for what happens "*now*" is "the *observation is now*".
Comment: @DidierL Space doesn't expand on such small scales. You would need to go to extragalactic scales to have an expansion of space. You're completely right that a distant star is no longer situated at the observed location, but not due to expansion of space, just due to regular motion.
Comment: @DidierL I can understand your thinking but given that the question specifically asks about exoplanets picked up by a transit (and detecting transits around stars in other galaxies being beyond us at the moment). Assuming the effect of expansion as negligible is not unreasonable. Your other point about stars moving around within the galaxy is more likely to be the reason distances have changed.
Comment: The question seems to assume a static universe, but in practice it is expanding, and stars are moving relative to each other. If a star is 13000 light years away "_now_" (which you would have to define as well), it might be closer or further away when the light we are seeing now was emitted, and the space itself might also have expanded in between while the light was travelling.
Comment: @pela Indeed, that's why I put "might have", considering someone might be tempted to extend an answer to this question to longer distances / periods of time.
Comment: "is seeing a planet that is 13000 years old?" -> The grammar here is ambiguous, so just in case: The "seeing" is 13000 years old, but this has no direct relation to the absolute age of the planet itself.
Answer: In one word, yes. Anything and everything we see, we see the way it was a certain time ago—about 1.3 seconds for the Moon, about 13,000 years for your hypothetical planet. Like @Richyt pointed out, there is no way for information to travel faster than the speed of light.
Because any and all celestial objects gravitationally affect any and all others, orbits are not frozen in time and do "evolve." If this planet is the only "major" thing gravitating around its star, its orbit will change very slowly, but there is still a change, which may or may not be noticeable in 13,000 years, depending on many factors such as the proximity of the planet to its star (the closer it is, the stronger relativistic orbital precession would be—e.g. it is 43″/century for Mercury, 8.6″/century for Venus, and 3.8″/century for the Earth [source for these latter two: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0802.0176.pdf).
Comment: @MSalters, no that is not literally what it means. Astrophysical distances are rarely measured directly as travel time. More usually distances are given as a 'luminosity distance' or a ' parallax'. In either case it is possible that the literal travel time is different from the equivalent number of lightyears.
Comment: @PaulOgilvie: No, 13000 lightyears literally means the light took 13000 years to reach earth, and not any longer or shorter.
Comment: @PaulOgilvie Yes, but not by much. This is how the reappearance of the [Refsdal Supernova](https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1525/) was predicted. Due to gravitational lensing it took several different paths with different distances resulting in a few year's difference over a 9.34 billion year journey.
Comment: Couldn't "gravitational lensing" make the distance traveled a bit longer? So 13,000+ years
Answer: Yes and no.
If we are asking if the light has traveled 13,000 years from that planet to our eyes, then yes.
However, if we imply that the light is 13,000 years old in relation to now, then it's not as simple, because the way we look at these things usually presupposes a concept of simultaneity which we are used to, but does not really exist.
Quoted from Wikipedia:

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it is impossible
to say in an absolute sense that two distinct events occur at the same
time if those events are separated in space.

If systems move with different speeds, the concept of simultaneity does not make sense any more because observers in these systems do not see things happen in the same way. For example, they will measure different time period between two super novae.
Considering this, we have to accept that the light might have traveled 13,000 light years from the distant star, but observers on the distant planet may not have experienced the same 13,000 years since then like we did.
Comment: The Sun's mean orbital speed around the galaxy is ~230 km/s, so the relative speed to a star 13,000 ly away is surely less than that. But even if the relative speed were 230 km/s that wouldn't give much time dilation. The Lorentz gamma factor is ~ 1 + 2.942961e-7, which over 13,000 years amounts to a difference of only ~33.5 hours.
Comment: Why not?  Wouldn't they have experienced 130k years?
Comment: That's right. On both planets, the time in the respective other planet would be observed to pass more slowly than in their own planet. Note that there is no observer who can see the "true" time, as there is no such thing as the true time. See the explanation about the twin paradox, for example on Wikipedia. But beware, it will likely twist your brain.
Comment: @PM2Ring 33.5 hrs can make a big difference…!
Comment: @PM2Ring If something exploded during those hours (and an explosion usually takes much less time), the observation could be quite different. The fact that the difference is small doesn't make it wrong. That's physics.
Comment: @PM2Ring I think it neither wrong but negligible, but you are absolutely right that's it's really a very small difference.
Comment: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/137805/discussion-between-pm-2ring-and-not2savvy).
Answer: To expand on the other answers a bit; if an alien on this exoplanet were to turn his super-powerful telescope in our direction and zoom in on Earth, he would see glaciers and ice-caps reaching down from the North pole to the Alps and bands of hunter-gatherers chasing caribou along the edges of the ice-sheets. Scan about a bit and he might notice some strangely ordered vegetation in the region around Mesopotamia as some of them experimented with agriculture...
Comment: Seeing hunter-gatherers from 13,000 light years away....woah, now that would be a powerful telescope!
Comment: @Janaaaa about 1.3 seconds, as there would be slight discrepancies with your clocks becoming ever-so-slightly desynced due to relativistic effects.
Comment: I was thinking about this more feasible scenario.  say, you and an astronaut sync'd up your watches while on earth.  the astronaut went on a mission to moon later.  when his watch showed 2000 hrs he turned on a laser light from moon which is observable from earth.  at what time in your watch, would you be able to see this 'on' event?  would it be 1.3 seconds past 2000 hrs?
Answer: As far as I can see, yes you would be. There is no way to know what is happening there now, as The theory of relativity would not allow for the propagation of information at faster (or slower, as light travels at the speed of light) than the speed of light, thus 13000 years in this case.
Answer: Yes, but only because it is within our galaxy.
For objects which are outside our galaxy, which are not gravitationally bound to us, it is not necessarily true. There are a few twists.

Gravitational lensing is one. Light does not need to take a direct route to reach us. Massive objects will bend light around them. Sometimes this behaves like a lens to sharpen the image, very useful. This can also cause optical illusions such as an Einstein cross making a single image appear four times. Lensing increases the distance light has to travel which can result in the distance traveled (and thus the time) being greater than the straight line distance.
One dramatic illustration of this is the extra-galactic Refsdal Supernova which was predicted to appear in the sky. How? Because they saw it already. The supernova was spotted in Nov 2014. Scientists calculated due to lensing it would reappear sometime in late 2015, and it did in December 2015. Veritasium has a good video on Gravitational Lensing and this prediction.

But that only added a few years, possibly a few decades, to an already multi-billion year journey. What matters far more is redshift. Because the universe is expanding, galaxies are generally moving away from each other. The further away from us, the faster its moving away. The furthest objects are moving away at greater than the speed of light meaning we will never see nor interact with them; what we can still see is the "observable universe".
Distant galaxies are essentially on a conveyor belt moving away from us at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Light from very, very distant galaxies takes much, much longer to reach us than the event. The Refsdal Supernova is 9 billion years old, yet it is 14 billion light-years away. This would seem to mean light is traveling faster than the speed of light, how did it cover 14 billion light-years in 9 billion years?
That's because in those 9 billion years the supernova's galaxy and our own have moved away from each other by over 5 billion light-years. Or more properly, more than 5 billion light-years of space has been added between us and the supernova.
This is how, despite the universe being estimated to be about 13.8 billion years old, we can theoretically see out to about 45 billion light-years. Light from the "edge" started traveling towards us 13.8 billion years ago when everything was much closer together, but the expanding universe caused it to take 13.8 billion years to reach us. Now, due to expansion, those objects are 45 billion light-years away. That 45 billion radius sphere is the Observable Universe.
This does not affect objects within our galaxy because we are gravitationally bound together. As the universe expands, our galaxy does not; gravity holds it together.
Comment: @johnny 13,000 LY is inside our galaxy. It's gravitationally bound to our galaxy, as are we, so expansion of the Universe does not affect its distance from us. Just the normal relative movements within our galaxy.
Comment: Since it is moving away from us, how do we know we are seeing a real 13,000 years ago?  If the whole galaxy is moving away, the planet, and our galaxy, wouldn't the distance from that 13000 exoplanet keep moving?
Answer: Depends what clock you are using and where you are located.
By their clock what you see now happened 13000 years ago in their  past.
By your clock you are seeing it now but it did happen in the past.


Butter coffee taste and effects?

Question: I have heard of people putting grass fed unsalted butter in their coffee and I have heard its pretty good. I was wondering if anyone has tried it and would like to describe the taste and how effective it was.
Comment: I recommend you to search for Bulletproof coffee. I believe you search for that. If this is the case, you may think of updating your question.
Answer: I do not know if this will be a good answer for you but here it goes.
When I lived in France (small rural community), I used to put grass fed unsalted butter into my coffee all the time. I got the idea from reading articles about Tibetans putting yak butter into their black tea.
Personally I enjoy it. It is an acquired taste because it is has a very rich and heavy flavor. Do not put milk or cream into your coffee as it will completely change your perspective on this great coffee idea. For myself, I prefer not to drink it just as it, safe the bottom of the barrel sort of speaking. I generally would dunk my rather dense bread (sometimes biscuits) into it at breakfast time and have enjoyed doing this as such for many years.
For myself I only do this in the mornings.
Answer: I tried "bulletproof coffee" recipe using a different brand of organic coffee and mixed in butter and coconut oil (instead of MTC oil). The coffee tasted creamy with a buttery/oily after taste. You can taste both the coconut and butter. If you're used to drinking strong coffee with cream this is not that much of a stretch. The effect of the caffeine in the coffee does last longer.
Now let's talk about the effect
Bulletproof coffee or butter coffee was derived from the traditional Butter tea used in the Tibet and the Himalayas. In the region a higher caloric density Yak butter is used.
MCT oil, which is also present in sufficient amounts in coconut oil (coconut oil also has higher amounts to HDL cholesterol to negligible LDL cholesterol, which is good) is an addition in tweaking the traditional butter tea to achive a Cognitive Enhancement. LDL is essential to repair and maintain the Myelin sheath of neurons as such to good neural activity of the brain, MCT oil do not require energy for absorption, utilization, or storage. This means that MCT is generally considered a good biologically inert source of energy that the human body finds reasonably easy to metabolize. So in other words it provides a great energy boost with almost no fat storage. As such coconut oil constituting both, also metabolises into ketone bodies more efficiently than any other dietary substance, (Ketones may improve cognitive functioning) gives you a mental boot. MCT have been tested to improve cognitive functioning. MCTs also produce more ketones per unit of energy than normal dietary fats. (Note: higher Ketonema is achieved with low Carb intake, following through can give body a non starvation ketosis effect)
Other effects of butter coffee is that it helps your body regulate Insulin resistance blood sugar levels and the hormone Leptin (hormone responsible for body fat regulation, metabolism, breaking down fact for energy rather than storing).  Which in turn also has a cascading effect on your hunger signaling hormone Ghrelin, without the hormone being secreted you will feel full for a long time (granted you did not take carbohydrate of any sort with the coffee, this is important as carbohydrates will trigger the fats to be stored in your body rather than broken down for energy, and later on will trigger ghrelin after the crabs run out).
But will it help you lose weight? Personally I felt, Uh, no!!!  Drinking coffee (in general) is liable to give you more energy, which may help motivate you to be more active, but only assuming you don't already drink a lot of caffiene.  Otherwise, all you're doing is offsetting the withdrawal symptoms.
Answer: I thought the taste was incredible... I'm used to sipping on straight black all day, but the fat addition made it so rich it was hard to drink a large amount.
It definitely changed the caffeine response for me personally; slower rise and fall in energy overall.
Practical Tip: It definitely isn't as easy as just adding a pat to you mug. The best results are when you get the butter fully emulsified in the coffee; think about blending the freshly brewed black coffee and butter together for the best effect. Otherwise you just get an unappealing layer of fat floating on top of the regular black coffee rather than the nice mixture.
Answer: On top of other comments, one large community that benefits the effects of "Bulletproof Coffee" are people on a Ketogenic diet (high fat, low carb). I'm currently on keto and have 3-5 BulletProof coffees a week; it definitely fills you up and the butter gives the coffee a different creaminess than with milk. If you use MCT oil, make sure to get "flavorless", otherwise it can add an overbearing taste.

Butter coffee taste and effects?


Does pragmatism view death as optional?

Question: In a paper Pragmatism and Umwelt-theory the author begins by contrasting pragmatism with scientific realism. He writes something very intriguing at a certain point. That from pragmatic perspective "Death is viewed as optional; it results from a failure of an organism to solve its living problem." There is no reference given, so I was wondering if someone could suggest literature that touches on this subject or venture a guess why pragmatism would hold such a strong view.
Comment: That hardly sounds like a strong view; it sounds like a simple statement of fact.  Is there any indication of why this is not also a "scientific realist" perspective?  Of course, once one realizes that death is optional, one should also notice that staying alive forever is absurdly hard, so reproduction starts to look like the best alternative.  And one might also note that the universe appears to be destined for eventual heat death (if dark energy doesn't hyperexpand us to zero density first), so maybe death is not optional on cosmological timescales.
Comment: @William - On what, precisely, are you disagreeing?  That saying alive forever is absurdly hard?  I never said that death was an intrinsic phenomenon.  (However, it is true that death _is_ often a regulated process; at the cellular level there are cascades of cell-death proteins that conduct death in an orderly fashion, and there are obvious examples like spiders and octopi where the life-cycle includes planned death at a very specific time.)
Comment: `once one realizes that death is optional, one should also notice that **staying alive forever is absurdly hard**, so reproduction starts to look like the best alternative`. THIS.
Comment: @Rex Kerr: I'd strongly disagree with you on that. It isn't clear to me (without further elaboration, at least) that death per se is an intrinsic phenomenon of an organism. Indeed, it may be that death is an infliction of outside processes (e.g. an organism viewed as an ensemble of microscopic particles never dies, due to conservation of energy, death being only a change in macroscopic properties of this system, which comes from interaction with the rest of the universe). Indeed, an organism is not physically isolated from the universe.
Comment: I disagree with this: "..it sounds like a simple **statement of fact**." I am a scientific realist, and it is not my perspective. In general I'd be very careful with the word _fact_.
Comment: That paper alienated me on the third sentence. Most ecologists are better than that, and have many have heard of Uexkull and even use the term Umwelt when it is appropriate.
Answer: Well....immortal in what sense is important, are you talking physical immortalism or hiatorical or any other form? Or u may be talking about quantum immortalism.... Let us understand first why we are not immortal physically?? Its very simple bcoz we die and cant resist death... So let us understand death 1st; why we die;how we die and when we die..if we came to know this..we may change it..on quantum level.... Why/how/when?? Is understanding sequence and decoding will be reverse... Start with WHEN? we start dieying with the very begining of birth....dieying is a process which take odd 50/60/70 and for few it take 100 years..so the key of understanding is why this difference of years in everybodies dieying?.... we need to decode now HOW? For knowing how we need to understand the common paratmeter of each human...i.e...breathing/oxygen/blood/respiration/and a body/ and a enrgy..(soul) or a power of our body... Now lets take help of science... Let us understand ...the human body growth pattern..we get older due to oxygen...and we use anti oxigen which let us make younger then what we shud be....so see the human life programming...oxygen is making us older and oxygen is compulsary matter to take every moment...the key is oxygen and key is breathing.......our blood takes oxygen to heart and hearts beats and oxygen to brain and brain works...now question is why oxygen only?? How our body takes oxygen only from environment?? Why cant we live on hydrogen or nitrogen??or carbon?... Now the 3rd question arises... Why we die...?? The very WHY....to be continue if some body is interrsted in this philosophy..
Comment: How does this address the question?
Comment: Not all questions are perfect sometime answers need a right question....

Does pragmatism view death as optional?


Underworld Connections: Tapping the Land for mana and ability?

Question: Let's say i enchant a land with Underworld Connections. Would i be able to tap said land for mana, and use the ability of Underworld Connections concurrently?
Answer: No.
Tapping a land doesn't actually produce mana, activating its ability does. Tapping is merely the paying of the cost to do so.
Unlike abilities that read "Whenever enchanted land is tapped"[1], it's not actually tapping the land that causes Underworld Connections's effect. Tapping is merely paying part of the cost to do so.
As part of activating either the abilities, you will need to tap the land, which will leave you unable to activate the other ability.
Like in real life, just because two abilities have the same cost doesn't mean you can pay the price just once for both.

An example of such an ability is Utopia Sprawl's. Tapping the enchanted Forest for mana produces {G} as normal and triggers Utopia Sprawl's ability to produce a second mana.
Answer: No, the following rule makes this pretty clear:

305.6. The basic land types are Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. If an object uses the words "basic land type," it's referring to one of these subtypes. A land with a basic land type has the intrinsic ability "(tap): Add [mana symbol] to your mana pool," even if the text box doesn't actually contain that text or the object has no text box. For Plains, [mana symbol] is (W); for Islands, (U); for Swamps, (B); for Mountains, (R); and for Forests, (G). See rule 107.4a. Also see rule 605, "Mana Abilities."

So then, if you play Underworld Connections on a Swamp, you now have the following

Swamp
Basic Land - Swamp
(Tap): Add (B) to your mana pool
(Tap), Pay 1 life: Draw a card.

Tapping is part of the cost of each ability, so you can tap the land to pay either cost, but not both at the same time
Answer: No.  You can't pay two separate tap costs with a single tap, just as how in real life you can't pay for two separate $1 charges with the same dollar.  To be precise, you can't even activate the abilities at the same time; you have to activate one first and pay its cost, and then afterwards the fact that the land is tapped will prevent you from paying the cost for the other ability.
Comment: The canonical Magic analogy is that you can't use the same mana to pay for two different things. (Along with that, just remember that things before the colon in the ability are costs.)


Server 2003 slow share

Question: I am running an 03 box with shares active. When uploading to the share, the speed is average. About 15-20 mbps.. This server is connected directly to 2 other machines accessing the server. When uploading to another server the connection speed is twice that of the direct storage. When uploading s massive folder, 250 GB, the upload will start as normal, but as it progresses it drops in speed.  Now it is sitting at around 2-7 Mbps. Any ideas on howIi can boost the transfer rate? On a side note, the download speed is great.  It is a speed that you would expect from this setup, the main problem is uploading and what is causing the extreme slowness in speeds.  Any help would be great.
Comment: Can you tell us more about the hardware on the server?
Answer: It depends on your hardware and the file structures you are copying. Copying one big file will generally be faster than copying many small files. When you are copying directory structures with thousands of files over a network connection on a file by file basis the transfer rate will always be a lot slower than a single large file copy.
However with very large files Windows 2003 can find itself in a situation that catastrophically affects both transfer rate and overall performance on the server. Windows 2003 buffers incoming network file copies to RAM and flushes them disk in the background as fast as it can. If your network connection is faster than your disk subsystem can keep up with this can lead to extreme amounts of RAM being consumed to store the buffered data. It's not hard for this to happen with Gigabit ethernet if you have only one disk or a small number of disks with RAID 5 behind the volume you are copying to. If your files are small this isn't too damaging as the copy simply slows down as each file gets written out before the next one can be started (for the most part) but if you are copying really large files under these conditions then the server will start to page out everything it can which will lead to severe performance problems if the files you are copying are significantly larger than the amount of free memory you started with.
Other activity on the server will impact this too - if the server receiving the copy is carrying out any other IO at the same time then this will cause the problem to occur much more rapidly. Your comment that the network copy is initially faster than local copies to direct attached storage strongly indicates to me that this is part of not all of your problem.
This behaviour has been fixed with Windows 2008 but the changes weren't universally welcomed as they appeared to slow down many copies that never triggered the worst case behaviour.
If this is the case then faster disks will help - if the disks can keep ahead of the network transfer rate then the problem wont happen. Moving to Windows 2008 should help but you may see slower initial copy speeds but better overall average transfer rates when dealing with large files in particular.
This article by Mark Russinovich about the changes in Windows Vista's copy behavior discusses the Windows 2003 issue if you want to really get to the root of it.

Server 2003 slow share


How to delete all nodes of a given content type?

Question: I have several thousand nodes of a particular content type. Using the web interface (example.com/admin/content), I can only delete about 50 at a time. How can I quickly delete them?
Answer: There is a module for that (TM).
See Bulk Delete.
That will use the Batch API to delete the nodes to avoid timeout or memory issues when deleting thousands of nodes with a single call to node_delete_multiple().
Bulk Delete is an abandoned module.  See for alternatives:

Views Bulk Operations
Delete All
Answer: In Drupal 8 one way is use the entityQuery() method with the EntityStorageInterface::delete() method:
$result = \Drupal::entityQuery("node")
    ->condition("type", "YOUR_CONTENT_TYPE_NAME")
    // If the update is being executed via drush entityQuery will only
    // return the content uid 0 have access to. To return all set
    // accessCheck to false since it defaults to TRUE.
    ->accessCheck(FALSE)
    ->execute();

$storage_handler = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage("node");
$entities = $storage_handler->loadMultiple($result);
$storage_handler->delete($entities);

If you need to apply other filters/conditions you can check the QueryInterface interface page
EDIT (Other way, thanks to @4k4):
$storage_handler = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage("node");
$entities = $storage_handler->loadByProperties(["type" => "YOUR_CONTENT_TYPE_NAME"]);
$storage_handler->delete($entities);

If you want to test the code you can use:
drush php-eval '$storage_handler = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage("node"); $entities = $storage_handler->loadByProperties(["type" => "article"]); $storage_handler->delete($entities);'

This will delete all your articles.
Answer: Looking at the Devel Generate module for inspiration, here is its "content kill" function devel_generate_content_kill:

function devel_generate_content_kill($values) {
  $results = db_select('node', 'n')
              ->fields('n', array('nid'))
              ->condition('type', $values['node_types'], 'IN')
              ->execute();
  foreach ($results as $result) {
    $nids[] = $result->nid;
  }

  if (!empty($nids)) {
    node_delete_multiple($nids);
    drupal_set_message(t('Deleted %count nodes.', array('%count' => count($nids))));
  }
}

So I would try either using Devel Generate to delete all nodes but create no new ones, or use example.com/devel/php to call devel_generate_content_kill(array('node_types' => array('my_node_type'))); directly.
Answer: If you want to do it purely through the UI, you can use the devel_generate module.

Navigate to the "Generate Content" menu in "Configuration" (admin/config/development/generate/content).
Select the content types you want to delete.
Make sure the checkbox next to "Delete all content in these content types before generating new content" is checked.
Set the number of nodes you'd like to generate to "0".

This way, no nodes will be generated and all nodes of the selected types will be deleted.
Answer: You can do this is in Drupal 7 using the Execute PHP Code part of the Devel module by entering:
$result= db_query("SELECT nid FROM {node} AS n WHERE n.type = 'TYPE'");
foreach ($result as $record) {
  node_delete($record->nid);
}

Comment: This will execute very slowly, if you need to delete thousands of nodes it's better to use a method which uses the batch API such as VBO.
Answer: Create a file with below code in root of drupal installation and execute the file.
<?php
  require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
  drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

  $aquery= db_query("SELECT nid FROM {node} AS n WHERE n.type = 'company'");
  while ($row = db_fetch_object($aquery)) {
    node_delete($row->nid);
  }
?>

Comment: db_fetch_object is not part of D7 database api.
Answer: Do this in terminal, if you use Drush and the delete all module:
 drush delete-all [content-type-machine-name]

Examples:
 drush delete-all article             Delect all article nodes.
 drush delete-all all                 Delete nodes of all types.
 drush delete-all --reset             Delete nodes of all types, and reset node, revision and comment counters.
 drush delete-all users               Delete users.

Options:
 --reset                              Reset counter for node, revision and comment tables.
 --roles                              pick roles

Comment: The drush command doesn't work when I use a subsite: drush -l my_site delete-all-delete-content -y but deleting from the ui works >> */admin/content/delete_content*.
Answer: Views Bulk operations provides a BatchAPI enabled, configurable node admin screen that allows filtering by type, selection of all nodes matching your search criteria, etc.
That's my hands-down solution in Drupal 6 - besides batch delete, you can bulk-edit nodes and do a bunch of other stuff.
It looks like the Drupal 7 version isn't ready yet - but I'd be watching that module for a D7 release.
Answer: With Devel module, using drush:
drush genc 0 --types=article --kill

Or in UI as explained here: http://befused.com/drupal/delete-nodes-devel
Comment: It's the Devel sub-module `devel_generate` that needs to be enabled. And for multiple types it's `drush genc 0 --kill --types="article, page"`
Answer: Another snippet is:
$query = db_query("SELECT n.nid FROM {node} n WHERE n.type = 'TO_BE_DELETED'");
while ($n = db_fetch_object($query))
{
     node_delete($n->nid);
}

where TO_BE_DELETED is the content type to be deleted.
Comment: It should be noted that works for Drupal 4.6, 5, and 6 only. The Drupal 7 version is `db_delete('node')`
Answer: I use Delete all module, it works fine with D8 and provides very useful drush commands. For example, to delete all content of the article content type:
drush delete-all article

Comment: Does this work with D8? I enabled the module but I get The drush command 'delete-all article' could not be found. I also cleared the drush cache
Comment: @YassinTahtah I have this same issue.
Answer: You can try
Delete all module, navigate to 'admin/content/delete_content' and you will be presented with a form for deletion of content belonging to certain content types.
Regards
Answer: If you have Migrate module enabled you can use:
$ drush migrate-wipe <content-type>

See Typical migrate commands using Drush.
Answer: This module is used to delete all content and/or users from a site. This is mainly a developer tool, which can come in handy in several case
https://www.drupal.org/project/delete_all
as will as the Bulk Delete module will delete any nodes of a certain node-type using the batch api. It is advised to use the Views Batch Operations module (VBO) for a small number of nodes. But if you have to delete 10.000 nodes this module might be a better option.
https://www.drupal.org/project/bulkdelete
Answer: Delete all nodes of content type programmatically here is a helper function:

function _delete_all_nodes_of_type($type = '') {
  // Return all nids of nodes of type.
  $nids = db_select('node', 'n')
    ->fields('n', array('nid'))
    ->condition('n.type', $type)
    ->execute()
    ->fetchCol(); // returns an indexed array
  if (!empty($nids)) {
    node_delete_multiple($nids);
    drupal_set_message(format_plural(count($nids), count($nids) . ' node Deleted.', count($nids) . ' nodes Deleted.'));
  }
}

Answer: Not sure if this is fast but if you wanted to get feedback about which node it was deleting you could do something like this:
<?php

$nids = \Drupal::entityQuery('node')->condition('type','output')->execute();
$nodes =  \Drupal\node\Entity\Node::loadMultiple($nids);
foreach ($nodes as $n) {
    echo $n->id() . "\n";
    $n->delete();
}

You can rush it with something like drush scr del.php. The nid would be displayed right before it was deleted.
Answer: This is the most direct way but it has issues when you have a considerable amount of data.
$storage_handler = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage("node");
$entities = $storage_handler->loadByProperties(["type" => "YOUR_CONTENT_TYPE_NAME"]);
$storage_handler->delete($entities);

To avoid this problem you could retrieve every node id by applying an entity query search and then doing each node deletion inside a for-each loop.
$query = \Drupal::entityQuery('node')->condition('type', 'YOUR_CONTENT_TYPE_NAME');
$nids = $query->execute();
$nodes = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('node')->loadMultiple($nids);
foreach ($nodes as $n) {
  $n->delete();
}

You can even play around adding any conditions to the query by keep calling the method condition('field_to_evaluate', 'value') (API docs).
Bonus
To execute from drush cli:
drush eval "
  \$query = \\Drupal::entityQuery('node')
    ->condition('type', 'YOUR_CONTENT_TYPE_NAME');
  \$nids = \$query->execute();
  \$nodes = \\Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('node')->loadMultiple(\$nids);
  foreach (\$nodes as \$n) {
    \$n->delete();
    echo 'Deleted node ' . \$n->id() . PHP_EOL;
  }
"

If you run into memory issues try to add php -d memory_limit=-1 before the drush command
Happy coding!
Answer: In newer versions of Drush, you can use the entity:delete command to bulk delete nodes of a specific content type.  No contributed modules or custom functions are required.
drush entity:delete node --bundle=content_type_machine_name

Another use of this command is to delete specific nodes.  For example, to delete nodes 14, 16, 382, and 596, structure your command like this:
drush entity:delete node 14,16,382,596

More information can be found in the Drush documentation.
Answer: I ended up using db_delete, no modules required:
<?php
  db_delete('node')
    ->condition('type', 'MY_CONTENT_TYPE')
    ->execute();
?>

Edit/Warning: See Berdir's comment below. This method does not clean up all data related to the nodes.
Comment: The problem with this approach is that other modules are not able to react and delete their information too. Depending on the content type, there is node specific information in the content_type table of that node, fields, taxonomies (a field too, actually), comments and so on. So you possibly end up with a lot of stale information in your database.
Comment: There is node_delete() and node_delete_multiple(), see tim.plunket's answer, but that isn't designed to handle thousands of nodes, see http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules--node--node.module/function/node_delete_multiple/7. It loads all nodes and then iterates over them in a single request. So pretty much have to use a contrib module like bulkdelete if you want to delete hundreds or thousands of nodes.
Comment: @Berdir - Interesting. Is there a better built-in way to delete nodes?


How can I increase max persistent connections per server for Safari 4.0.x?

Question: We have a web application that is being restricted by the max number of persistent connections per server in Safari. FireFox 3 allows us to easily configure this browser restriction, and there is a hack for IE 8.  Is there a known way to change this restriction in Safari?
Answer: I wish there was. But this is a part of the HTTP 1.1 Specifications (Page 44) so a well behaved browser shouldn't violate it anyway.
If you're having troubles with designing your own application, then the answer is to look into different ways of doing what you're trying to (try Stack Overflow for this), because if you ever then get an outside visitor you can't very well ask them to reconfigure their browser with ugly hacks just to view your website...
Answer: This may not easily solve the original problem, but there is a workaround to the persistent connection/host limit in Safari. You can fool Safari by editing the hosts file. For example, to /etc/hosts you might add:
192.168.1.101 host1 host2 ...
Now you can have "x" persistent connections with each dummy host name, where "x" is the limit in Safari. You are stuck entering and updating the IP address, unless you use another hack to periodically update it. See the answer by Guðmundur H here: auto-update IP address in /etc/hosts
This came in handy when using server-push to display images from 16 different security cameras. Safari 5.0.x stops loading after the sixth image, but using dummy server names all pointing to the same IP address allows an unlimited number of connections.
Answer: No, there is no exposed setting for this in Safari.


Do divorced non-Catholics need an annulment to marry in the Catholic Church?

Question: Here's something I've got no idea about. In the case where one party is married in a Baptist Church but divorced and the other party has no encumbrances. Barring quarrelsome arguments I can't answer concerning grounds for annulment, is the first party even required to do anything to prove that their first marriage is null and void?
Answer:
Code of Canon Law Can. 1060 Marriage possesses the favor of law;
  therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be
  upheld until the contrary is proven.

Thus the Church  recognizes the marriages of non-Catholics as well and considers them valid until proven otherwise.

Answering assuming the party with no encumbrances is Catholic

No marriage can occur until the marriage of the party previously married in the Baptist Church and now divorced is examined by the Church and a decree of nullity issued (i.e. in the eyes of the Church, that marriage never existed to begin with).
Once that decree has been issued, the requirements for a mixed marriage must be met for there to be a valid marriage in the Catholic Church.

Addendum

Why does the Catholic Church require an intended spouse, who is divorced but not Catholic, to obtain an annulment before marrying in
  the Catholic Church?
The Catholic Church respects all marriages and presumes that they are
  valid. Thus, for example, it considers the marriages of two
  Protestant, Jewish, or even nonbelieving persons to be binding for
  life. The Church requires a declaration of nullity to establish that
  an essential element was missing in that previous union preventing it
  from being a valid marriage.
This is often a difficult and emotional issue. If the intended spouse
  comes from a faith tradition that accepts divorce and remarriage, it
  may be hard for them to understand why they must go through the
  Catholic tribunal process. Couples in this situation may find it
  helpful to talk with a priest or deacon. To go through the process can
  be a sign of great love of the non-Catholic for their intended spouse.

Source: Annulments | FOR YOUR MARRIAGE | An initiative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Please see also: What are the stipulations for a mixed marriage to be valid in the Catholic Church?.

It is my belief that the following are also pertinent:

MATRIMONIA MIXTA
INSTRUCTION ON MIXED MARRIAGES
Comment: "If the intended spouse comes from a faith tradition that accepts divorce and remarriage," wouldn't it be very easy to get an annulment, since such a person would have great difficulty entering into what the Catholic Church considers a valid marriage?
Comment: @AndreasBlass Perhaps that's a good question in its own right.
Comment: @AndreasBlass Practical it is not necessarily easy as the churchs thinks everyone has its understanding of marriage if not otherwise proven. But there is theological discussion if this should hold in future (with future society in mind). It is a very good question.
Comment: @AndreasBlass not necessarily. A religion might accept divorce to varying degrees but that doesn't mean that it thinks that all marriages should end in divorce or the individual didn't enter a marriage with that intent.
Answer: I am Catholic, and my husband was divorced. They were married in a Baptist church, though his ex was Catholic. We had to get his 1st marriage annulled before we could marry in the church. They were teenagers when they got married, and it only lasted 3 years.
Comment: Welcome to Christianity SE and thank you for your contribution. When you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and [how it is different than others](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1809/50259).


What kind of splines should be used when planning roads?

Question: I would like to plan a small road network for an imaginary city, and I am looking for a way to create curved road segments. I am familiar with cubic Bezier curves, but I am not sure if it's the best fit for this problem, and it's not trivial to offset. Circle arcs are easy to calculate and offset, but they are not as flexible and hard to chain. What kind of splines do enginieers use, when they plan roads?
Answer: Circular arcs are not used except in special situations, because the sudden change in curvature from a straight road to a circular arc would mean drivers had to quickly turn the steering wheel to the correct position to follow the circular arc, hold the wheel steady, and quickly turn back to straight at the end of the arc. There would also be problems if the road was banked around the curve (which is standard practice for high speed roads) since the bank angle can't suddenly jump from zero to the correct value for the circular arc.
The standard shape is a spiral curve, where the driver follows the curve by turning the wheel gradually to enter and leave the curve.
You could probably make a reasonable approximation to the standard spiral from Bezier curves, once you realize what you are trying to achieve.
There are lots of web references to the design process for  spiral curves, including designing the road camber around the curve (which may be irrelevant for your project).
See http://cc4w.net/spiral/SpiralTraining.pdf for example.
Answer: Roads are usually designed using catenary curves. https://sketchup.engineeringtoolbox.com/catenery-curve-c_169.html
Road curves are designed around vehicle velocities and they are not uniform. As vehicles approach a curve they tend to slow down and then accelerate out of the bend which means a non uniform curve is best suited to the purpose. This can be parabolic or more accurately, catenary. The curves are usually calculated using differential calculus.
Answer: Clothoid?
I recall hearing that some roadway curves are designed using the Clothoid Spiral AKA the Spiral of Cornu AKA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_spiral
in which the (radius of) curvature varies linearly with arclength.
Caveat: this is from ages ago (AKA grad school); YMMV.


Does Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager Support Storing VHDs on File Server Share?

Question: I have a Hyper-V server running perfectly fine with the VHDs placed on a separate file server shared folder. Now when I install MS Virtual Machine Manager and add the host machine to VMM, it says "Unsupported Configuration" next to each of the Virtual Machines, except one which has its VHD located on the same Hyper-V host server.
I found this discussion: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/virtualmachingmgrhyperv/thread/676e134f-beef-451a-b612-7c9254023b99/
Does this mean, I cannot use Virtual Machine Manager with VHDs on a shared drive? Does anyone have experience with this issue?
Answer: Are you mapping the file share as a local drive?  If not, I would at least give that a shot.
Comment: It doesn't work either way: folder share or mapped drive.


Will rental expiration on Amazon Instant Video interrupt movie playback?

Question: When renting a movie from Amazon Instant Video, it says you have 24 hours to finish watching it. If I start watching a 2 hour video at the 23 hour mark, will it let me finish watching, or will it interrupt me halfway through? I'm using the PS3 version of the application if that makes any difference.
Comment: I've often wondered this. It's kind of like the santa claus question that kid's ask. If they stay up they'll never see him because he only comes when they're asleep.
Comment: 2024 started 48 hour rental one evening, interrupted 30 minutes in, resumed two days later and watched remainder of movie ending 20 minutes after expiration without interruption. Exited during credits and had offer to rent again, so rental was truly over and could not resume after exiting. YMMV if you are re-watching a second time.
Answer: To answer my own question: No, it will not interrupt you. Even if you go over the time limit, you can watch the entire movie as long as you start before the 24 hour mark.
Apparently this is no longer true, and the movie will stop playing as soon as it expires.
Comment: Just confirmed that this is indeed true.
Comment: This is incorrect as of 6/16/14. I was just stopped in the middle of my movie.
Answer: I haven't tested this hypothesis enough to confirm it: but there was at least one time when I resumed a rental which had more than an hour left on it with the ticker telling me I had 20 minutes or so left, and yet I was able to finish the movie uninterrupted. Based on that info, I think the way it works is that the ticker is measuring how much time you have until you can start resuming the video, and watch it uninterruptedly until the end. If you were to start it with 20 minutes left, though, and then pause it for an hour, you'd be cut off.
Answer: As of 2016, I was able to watch the final 45 minutes of a movie after it expired and I was able to pause for 5 minutes and resume play with no issues.
Answer: Yes, your playback will be interrupted. At least mine was. I had 28 minutes left on my X-Men Apocalypse rental and decided to watch it a second time. At the 27:07 mark the playback stopped and would not restart. Keep in mind, this was my second viewing and I had already seen it completely two days earlier, and I only had 28 minutes left on the rental when I started the second playback.
Answer: I just had a movie stop playing in the middle when I hit the expiration time, and then the movie was no longer accessible.
Answer: I just finished watching The Other Guys on Amazon. My rental only had 45 minutes left when I restarted the film from the beginning. I never paused or anything, out of fear that it would end, but I was able to watch the whole thing; technically exceeded my time limit by a little over an hour, but it didn't stop the video and I got to watch the whole thing.
Answer: If you have already started the movie, then stop it and restart again close to the 24 hour expiration time, it won't show the whole movie.  I started it one evening, then started it again an hour before the 24 hour expiration time and it quit at exactly 24 hours, leaving another hour of film I missed.   Sigh... live and learn.
Answer: Yes, the rental expiration deadline will interrupt movie playback.  I started a movie last night, then attempted to finish it tonight but it stopped streaming when the deadline hit.
Rather than give Amazon more money for the same movie, I found the movie on Google Play Movies and bought it there the second time. And it was a 48 hour rental for the same price as the Amazon 24 hour rental.  Fail.
I really think all streaming movies should be at least 48 hour rentals.


Prevent a player from using creature type?

Question: Is there a card that has an ability to the effect of "Choose a creature type. Creatures of that type cannot be summoned."? I feel like I would have found something on it if there was, seeing as it counters A LOT of decks, but I'd like to get confirmation.
Comment: The modern wording of such a card would probably be something like "Choose a creature type. Creature spells of that type cannot be cast."
Answer: That specific effect does not exist. However, there are some cards with effects that are probably less powerful, but still can do significant damage to a tribal deck:

An-Zerrin Ruins prevents creatures of a chosen type from untapping.
Circle of Solace allows you to prevent damage from creatures of a chosen type.
Engineered Plague decreases the power and toughness of creatures of a chosen type. Outbreak has a similar effect, but just for one turn.
Tsabo's Decree destroys creatures of a chosen type, and also makes your opponent discard creature cards of that type.
Comment: I had [Tivadar's Crusade](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159829) in a white deck (sideboard) just because one player in my group at college loved his goblin deck.
Answer: No, there is no card that prevents creature types from being played. The closest card (prevention wise) would be Iona, Shield of Emeria, which prevents your opponents from playing a color. This would do quite a bit of damage to a tribal deck, since most tribes favor a color (goblins are red, merfolk are blue, elves are green etc)


Custom alternative to Datasheet view of SharePoint

Question: I have taxonomy fields as well as rich text boxes in my SharePoint 2010 list which needs to be edited in datasheet view so that bulk update is possible. Also I have Workflow goin on that list so Content Aprroval is On , I want to initiate manual workflow on each item when needed.
I could not find destination via Data sheet view of SharePoint.
Is there any workaround to it , I mean if we can have any custom thing created which could solve the problem , or is there any software which could be loaded to get list items in Datasheet mode and could be edited too.
Regards,
Prakriti
Answer: I've used and modified Batch Edit from codeplex before for similar requirements and had great results.
http://sp2010batchedit.codeplex.com/


Can vet / veterinary bills be considered deductions (tax-deductible) for Income Tax purposes [Canada]?

Question: When I gathered all my 2009 receipts in preparation for my Income Tax filing, I came across a large number of expenses incurred for my pets.  Are these expenses tax-deductible?
Comment: Only if you claim them as dependents. =)
Comment: Well they don't exactly contribute to the household... ;-)
Comment: Sure they do!  Dogs and cats contribute to the security of house and home (when they want to). :-)
Answer: No.
Medical bills for yourself or your human companions may be: Canada Revenue
Seeing-eye dogs and the like also get special treatment Nice Doggie
There are pet medical insurance policies; but as they are often priced like human policies, they might exclude your animal if it has a pre-existing condition.
Good Luck
Scott
Comment: I would expect that if the animal in question was part of your business (such as a farm animal, or a security dog) then you could probably claim vet bills as a business expense.
Answer: In the US service animals are treated like durable medical equipment from a tax POV, and some expenses can be deducted. Likewise, expenses associated with working animals are business or hobby expenses than can be deducted to a certain extent.
But pets, no. Legally they are "chattels" -- property that can move. Generally speaking, you can't deduct the cost of maintaining your belongings.


How to check if a User is part of a Group or not in a UI extension

Question: I am trying to implement a GUI extension where I want the extension to be accessible only to the Users who are part of a certain user Group. How do I achieve this using the Anguilla framework?
Comment: Pl. indicate if this is for 2013 or 2011. It would help the readers. The difference is highlighted below, if you want to play with the XML The response from the API: var xml = Tridion.UI.UserSettings.getInstance().getXmlDocument(); is different between the two versions. To recurse through grpmemberships: var grpMemShip = xml.getElementsByTagName("tcm:GroupMemberships"); For 2011 we need to use the property childnodes but in 2013 its children.
Answer: You do this in the _isAvailable method you implemented in your command Javascript, optionally you can also do this in the _isEnabled method.
In there you will have to check what Group the User belongs to. To get the current User and its Groups you can use the following:
var settings = Tridion.UI.UserSettings.getJsonUserSettings(true);
if (settings)
{
    var groups = settings.User.Data.GroupMemberships;
}

Now the groups parameter will be be an object array containing the Groups the current User belongs to, they are formatted as JSON with a type, title and href (the TCMURI).
Now please note that Administrator users are usually not assigned to any Groups specifically (because they have all rights coming from their Administrator status already). Such a user will also not have an array of Groups in its GroupMemberships, but that will just contain one object (the Group "Everyone" for an Administrator).
To identify if a user is an Administrator, you can check out settings.User.Data.Privileges, that will have the value 1 (for an Administrator).
Comment: Tried accessing groups as an array, not able to iterate through the array. tried getting length using alert(groups.length); values comes up as 'undefined'
Comment: Try `settings.User.Data.GroupMemberships` in your browser Console (after you have set the `settings` variable) and you will see what it contains. The browser developer tools and its Console window are really your best friend when developing UI extensions. When I request `settings.User.Data.GroupMemberships.length` it returns 3 but my user is part of 3 groups, if your user is a standard Administrator it might just be part of the group Everyone only, which will not show as an array indeed, but just the info of that Group (which might be a problem for your check of course).
Comment: +1. I think this type of setup may also need to check for (or intentionally ignore) "subgroup" scenarios (e.g. user belongs to "Global Author" which belongs to "Author"). Does GroupMemberships include *parents* of the user's immediate group?
Comment: @AlvinReyes I'm pretty sure that only the actual memberships are listed, so I'm expecting if rights are set using groups and subgroups, then the code in this extension will become a lot more complicated. On the other hand, there must be a way to check rights against groups, as that is what the UI does. So next to determining which group memberships the user has, there might also be some functions around that in the API.
Comment: Good point, we see the UI check rights/scope/permissions in the list of publications, how tabs display, schema and template drop-downs, etc. :-)


Why didn't the Shadows ask the humans "What do you want?" on Babylon 5, given that other species were asked and humans were an important species?

Question: Mr Morden asked the same question "What do you want?" to the Narn, Centauri and Minbari representatives on Babylon 5 in Season 1. These are the major species on Babylon 5. Yet, why didn't he ask the humans, given that humans are in charge of Babylon 5 and are arguably the most important species on Babylon 5? How could humans be missed out? As a member of the human race, I feel somewhat left out and unimportant.
Comment: I believe that you are referring to the humans on Babylon 5. I am not sure if you have seen the whole Babylon 5, but to avoid spoilers as much as possible, the Shadows had some influence on (some important) humans back on Earth, and I strongly believe the question "What do you want?" might have been the beginning of the conversation.
Answer: Because in the episode where Morden goes around asking the ambassadors what they want he is intercepted by Kosh before Morden gets to Sinclair and Kosh tells Morden,

"They are not for you."

JMS confirmed online that "they" were humans. (Source) Being warned off by a Vorlon was enough for Morden. But the Shadows obviously made contact with other powerful humans at some point, such as Vice President Clark and Psi Corps
Comment: I'd always thought the implication was that the shadows had already asked the humans, in the person of Morden himselfand the rest of the crew of the ship he "died" on.
Comment: Do you have a source for the JMS confirmation? I also assumed that it was easy for the Shadows to infiltrate humans because the Icarus was a human ship.
Comment: @Rache The questions asked by the Vorlons and the Shadows were, IMO, attempts to manipulate the lesser races. Because of the way television works we only ever see them asking people important to the story. However, I believe the implication is that the Shadows only asked people in positions of influence, people the Shadows could initially do favours for then manipulate to further their own ends. Nobodies like Morden became slaves of some sort.
Comment: SPOILERS (not that there weren't some above anyway) @durron597 Source added, thanks for reminder. I don't think the Icarus crew being human is of special importance to them infiltrating human society. It seems the Shadows had an easy time manipulating members of any race that weren't an Old One or a Vorlon sycophant like the Minbari. They easily infiltrated the Centauri and the Drakh became subservient without those races, so far as we know, first having a handful of explorers land on the Shadow planet. The special importance of Icarus is Anna/Sheridan backstory and the waking of the Shadows.
Comment: @Smartybartfast the blond dude who warns Londo to get off of Babylon 5 is also human. We also see Morden in a meeting with members of the Psi Corps later on. I'm sure the shadows knew exactly how frightening their physical appearance was, but given the lack of contact between races prior to Babylon 5's existence, a human trying to get access in the highest levels of the Centauri government would have been impossible.


How to do formatting?

Question: I need help with formatting like how to use logs, lims, superscripts and subscripts etc.
Comment: Please see this question, here: http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/5020/mathjax-basic-tutorial-and-quick-reference
Answer: Well, above the upper right corner of the text box for your question/answer there is little '?' sign. After clicking the sign it will show you list of basic formatting or you can get to a different site for 'advanced help'. Also you can use LaTeX for math formatting because the server runs MathJax script.

But to cover just the basics:
To format math expressions you can must enclose the math in '\$' from each side. So, in order to write something like this: $x^2 + 2$, I had to write \$x^2 + 2\$. As you can probably tell from the example the superscript/upper index/exponent you can write using this '^' sign. The subscript uses '_'. For example $2x_1^2 + x_2$ is in fact: \$2x_1^2 + x_2\$.
If the expression in the super/subscript is more complicated you must use curly brackets. E.g. \$ x^-1\$ executes as $ x^-1$, so in order to get $ x^{-1}$ you must write \$ x^{-1}\$. The same goes for the subscript.
Basic mathematical functions are probably known to MathJax and you can get the right format by writing '\' before the name of the function without any space. So e.g. \$lim\$ compiles as $lim$ while \$\lim\$ is $\lim$. Btw. subscript with limits: \$\lim_{n \to \infty}\$ stands for $\lim_{n \to \infty}$. More examples: \$\sin, \cos, \log_a, \sum_{n=1}^\infty \ldots\$ is $\sin, \cos, \log_a, \sum_{n=1}^\infty, \int_0^1 \ldots$.
If the function isn't know to $\LaTeX$ you can write \$\operatorname{sgn}x\$ and it will give the 'sgn' proper font and spacing $\operatorname{sgn} x$.
When the mathematical object is bigger or longer you can use double dollars instead of single. Then the object will be put in the middle and will be slightly bigger. E.g. \$\$\int_0^1 x_1^2 \;\mathrm{dx}\$\$ will look like this
$$\int_0^1 x_1^2\; \mathrm{dx}$$
Don't worry about the '\;' it is just space in mathematical mode(also '\,' and '\:') and '\mathrm{dx}' just changes the family font.
Hope that will help you to get into it. Bear in mind, that this is very little, so you will have to learn a lot by yourself. But feel free to ask. Good luck!
Answer: This should probably go in Mathematics Meta, but when you make posts on the right side there are 3 links for formatting and MathJaX help.
I don't think there's a formatting guide on Stack Overflow because very rarely do people use math equations, most of the time it's code.

How to do formatting?


What is the Shia view of Abdullah Ibn Umar?

Question: The son of Umar Ibn Al Khattab. Do Shias accept his narrations?
Answer: Concise answer:
Abdullah ibn umar (the son of second Caliph), did not swear allegiance to Imam Ali (a.s.). Although he was not from Imam Ali's enemies. He did not support of Imam's opponents, and so on. According to some narrations, at the end times of his life, Abdullah regretted that he didn't support Imam Ali
(a.s.) and did not war beside him.
He can be deemed as a non-politic individual who often was following of individual worship. And it was due to his incomplete ability in politics that he was far of it. (He didn't see sufficient ability and cleverness in himself to participate in politics.)

Source and detailed answer in Persian (Farsi): www.islamquest.net
Comment: This doesn't answer the question part about the acceptance of his narrations. However I guess that Shi'a don't accept them.
Answer: Shiites don't accept his narrations. His stance was against Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.).


Does a single off-axis thruster firing continuously eventually stabilize attitude gyroscopically?

Question: I was recently reading a very good sci-fi story recounting, in loving detail and with a good deal of accuracy, the first space program of an alien race, with strong (intentional) similarities to the American and Soviet endeavors. One thing caught my attention, though: a capsule in distress vented extra $O_2$ in order to spin-stabilize itself in preparation for extremely-manual retro-rocket activation (which was expected to be much less precise than normal, as the retro-rockets had to be activated with a jury-rigged flare gun). But as far as I could tell, the $O_2$ system had not been designed for the purpose, so presumably had only a single vent (rather than two deliberately placed to create spinning, which would be very strange, or two placed to cancel thrust, which would not have been useful). Would a continuous vent over some time actually create a proper spin and create a stable attitude, or would it instead just spiral outward and become uncontrollable?
Comment: @SF's answer points out that if the location doesn't happen to be just the right place, the venting will add angular momentum about one axis while removing it about another. (I think I should say "along" the axis but it sounds weird - angular momentum vectors are drawn perpendicular to the plane of rotation)
Comment: What is the title/author of that book out of curiosity?
Answer: The short answer is "maybe, if they were spectacularly lucky, but it's a story, so that's OK."
Longer answer:
There is quite a lot buried in the question in terms of assumptions, but here's a go.

Just for a vent, if the thrust direction is radially out from the centre of mass then there will be no torque and no spin up. It would need to be off radial.  Details: it would be most efficient if tangential.
I presume what you mean by "rather than two deliberately placed…" is that if you have two vents you could arrange them so that you get a "pure" torque with no vehicle translation. If there is just one vent then there will be some translation regardless of whether there is some torque as per the first point. If there is nothing to crash into nearby then it's probably not a problem.
The point of spinning for stability during a rocket motor firing is so that the thrust vector is in a known, deliberate direction and doesn't drift because of minor thrust misalignments or an initial attitude drift rate from another cause such as asymmetric drag. The significance being:

You have to know (i.e. measure) which direction you want to fire the retro-rocket in the first place.
You have to be able to point the spin axis along the direction of the intended retro-rocket firing to better than the plausible thrust misalignment. That could mean a reaction wheel (which could give you your stabilisation spin anyway), another thruster, or another vent in the right place and a means of confirming (measuring) the achieved direction of the spin axis.
The degree of spin-up has to be meaningful for the size of retro-rocket, potential misalignment and the amount of drift that could otherwise take place, plus drift from initial rates. This could be quite uncomfortable if crewed (think 60rpm).

Objects don't automatically become stable when they spin. A solid flat spinning-top would, but anything with a different shape (e.g. pencil like) and some sort of energy damping from appendages, liquid slosh etc could actually become less stable, or rather transfer its spin axis away from the desired one.

I have a dim recollection from college (a long time ago) of being taught that an early US unmanned mission actually suffered from precisely the last problem because it had whip-aerials and it was not foreseen that this would cause the pencil-shaped upper stage to become unstable.
EDIT:
See SF and Uhoh's answers for one extra constraint I missed, viz. relationship of the created spin to the axis along which the motor is mounted. My points above about measuring angles etc addressed the also vital but distinct concept of the orientation of the spin to the desired thrust vector in inertial space.
EDIT 2 (2020):
Here is the related answer to a question on spin stabilisation - the one that I refer to above regarding "the unmanned US mission" Why does spinning help stabilisation - Explorer 1    I wrote that in 2017 long after I'd forgotten that I wrote this answer (originally in 2016).
Comment: Whip arials and a pencil shape: Explorer 1. I read about it. It ended up being new physics. It wasn't known before that if there's a way to bleed off energy it would bleed off its rotation energy until in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Comment: Your presumption is correct, thanks. I'll wait a bit longer to make sure no one has any salient points to add, but I suspect you'll get the checkmark.
Answer: Off-axis yes, but in-plane.
The thrust vector must be in the plane perpendicular to the spin axis and passing through the center of gravity of the rocket.
And of course oriented opposite to the spin direction.
In this picture, the spin axis goes lengthwise through the rocket, so a thruster located at the height of the center of mass of the rocket will work.

It doesn't need to be tangent to the rocket surface (though it will be most efficient if it is), but if the thrust vector is either pointing off the plane surface, or not attached to the plane surface, the rocket, while losing its original spin, will begin entering a new spin, with its plane of rotation passing through the center of mass and containing the thrust vector.
Yes, it will introduce some translational motion too, but it will be quite minimal comparing to what you normally face with orbital motion - nothing to worry about. That would be an issue when docking, but with one thruster you're definitely not docking on your own anyway.
Answer: Luckily their capsule was not space-station-shaped!

@SF.'s answer points out that the vent needs to be on the plane containing the center of mass to avoid adding spin about a different axis. If the vent is ON the station, it better not be narrow at that point!
Comment: Good point, well made, I had a nagging suspicion I had missed something out!
Answer: If a single thruster really stabilizes attitude finally, it would be a big waste of RCS fuel. Using three pairs of thrusters at the optimal points of the spaceship would require much less fuel.
Comment: Somebody here seems to dislike reading the thruth about waste.


Are all the people except Muslims going to end up in Hell?

Question: What will happen to all the other non Muslim souls after they die? Are they bound to end up in Hell? Or will they have a trail different than ours? Please Explain.
Comment: Just as a short input: That depends on whether they have received the message of Islam etc.
Answer: No. Allah won't punish all non-Muslims for their beliefs. Allah almighty, may he be exalted, says in the Quran (interpretation of the meaning):

Whoever is guided is only guided for [the benefit of] his soul. And
  whoever errs only errs against it. And no bearer of burdens will bear
  the burden of another. And never would We punish until We sent a
  messenger. [Qur'an 17:15]

He won't punish the non-Muslims to whom the massage of Islam didn't reach. Those who didn't receive the massage will be tested again in the hereafter.
But the non-Muslims who rejected Islam after hearing about it will go to hell. Prophet (peace be upon him) said:

"By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, there is no-one of
  this ummah, Jew or Christian, who hears of me then dies without
  believing in that with which I have been sent, but he will be one of
  the people of Hell." (Reported by Muslim, may Allaah have mercy on
  him, in al-Saheeh, 153).

The Quran says (interpretation of the meaning):

"And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be
  accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers."
  [Qur'an 3:85]

The non-Muslims who know about Islam and reject it and seek another religion other than Islam will go to hell. It's worth noting that Allah won't throw them the directly into hell. They will get a fair trial. Even though they are ungrateful evildoers, Allah will allow them to provide arguments in defence of them.
But there will be sound and clear evidence against them and they will accept the judgement of Allah almighty. They will want to come back to earth promising that they will follow all the commands of Allah if they are given another chance. But they won't be given another chance.
Comment: "The non-Muslims who know about Islam and reject it and seek another religion other than Islam will go to hell." What about people who don't seek any religion? Also, what about people who know about Islam but aren't convinced?
Answer: Let me give you an answer from some thing with real authority, the Quran!

Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabeans [before Prophet Muhammad] - those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness - will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve

https://quran.com/2:62
So definitely there are a huge group of non-Muslims that won't go to hell.
I also wrote a similar answer before here
Comment: Can the downvoter please explain?
Answer: Someone (that knows religion more than me) told me that it depends on whether they have received the message of Islam or not (accordingly to the first answer). those who received the message and rejected it will perish in the hell. those who have not received it will be submitted to tests.


Email flow issues when additional NICs are activated in Exchange 2007

Question: I am currently working in an Exchange 2007 Environment which is quite basic - an EdgeSync Server and an CASHUB. Both of which have two NICS, ostensibly for an internal and external interface in the case of the Edgesync server and for the CASHUB to provide a specific ActiveSync/OWA instance to a less trusted subnet.
The Edgesync server works ok with two NICS, provided they are both in the same subnet (the case during initial configuration).  However, once the VLAN is set to provide access only to the appropriate subnet and the ip configuration has been updated mail flow stops.
As soon as the second NIC is activated on the CASHUB client connectivity dies, mail flow stops and OWA cannot access exchange.
It seems to be the case of Exchange/Windows deciding to respond/use the second Interface for tasks which start on the first interface and then because of firewall rules having this blocked.
Is there a way to restrict which services exchange sets to which interface? While I might fix the issue of using the wrong NIC with the routing tables, is there a way to prevent client access from being available over the second NIC?
Answer: Remove the gateway from the secondary NIC.


How to figure out how much data should be pushed through TCP connection?

Question: I'm working on a TCP server right now and got to a point where I am wondering how much data I should push through the connection. The question is what will happen if I send a large amount of data (for example 10 MB) but the connection is slow (like 64 kBit/sec)? Will the data stay within the buffer of the operating system or will it be pushed out to the internet and be buffered in some kind of internet-provider-server? Would it make sense to measure the transmission speed rates, to push out only as much data as the connection can handle?
Answer: TCP is normally built with the assumption that buffering will happen in arbitrary places. Some will be in your own application (when the write call blocks), some will be in the OS, some in the routers on the way and some in the OS of the receiver (before the app read the data).
If you write a really large amount of data and the link is far slower your app will block as the OS buffers are of limited size. If you don't want that you will need to use non-blocking APIs and return to service the socket as needed.
If you care about latency then TCP is not a good fit, it tries to optimize bandwidth and fairness.
If you will try to measure transfer speed on the write side only you will get a skewed result as the first few megabytes will fly by as they are queued by the OS and the routers and then everything will slow to a crawl which is approximately the real speed but will jitter a lot. I can't see a really good reason to do it.
Answer:
what will happen if I send a large amount of data (for example 10 MB) but the connection is slow (like 64 kBit/sec)?

Your send() will block in blocking mode, or return -1/EAGAIN/EWOULDBLOCK in non-blocking mode.

Will the data stay within the buffer of the operating system

Yes.

or will it be pushed out to the internet and be buffered in some kind of internet-provider-server?

No.

Would it make sense to measure the transmission speed rates, to push out only as much data as the connection can handle?

Definitely not. TCP already does exactly that.


What are some good resources for generating privacy policies and terms of use?

Question: We've determined that our website needs a privacy policy and a terms of use page to protect our interests.  Are there automated tools that will generate these for us?  How do we go about creating these parts of the website?
Comment: good question!!
Answer: The Better Business Bureau Online has a Sample Privacy Notice which is as good as any in terms of a simple, but thorough policy. It has these sections:

Our Commitment To Privacy
The Information We Collect
How We Use Information
Our Commitment To Data Security
Our Commitment To Children's Privacy
How To Access Or Correct Your Information
How To Contact Us

Here's another one, from a apps.gov site, with these headings:

Information Collected and Stored Automatically
If You Provide Personal Information
Cookies
Links to Other Sites
Children's Privacy
Internet Security
Changes to this Policy

Those two together should give you a solid template. If you store and collect more data, be clear about the data retention and reselling policies and you might think about putting together something more like an End User License Agreement.
Comment: +1, thanks - the link moved but I found a couple of additional resources as well!
Comment: Fixed the BBB link to point at the new location. (Shame on BBB for not implementing a proper redirect!)
Answer: The excellent resouce artlung provided to the BBB website link is now moved. This was the closest thing I could find:
http://www.bbb.org/us/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site=70&id=a17891ea-ce8e-48d7-a27a-e6d2e5833cea
Linked within is a set of tips on how to create your privacy policy:
http://www.bbbonline.org/UnderstandingPrivacy/PMRC/createpolicy.asp
You may also find the Fair Information Practice Principals at the FTC interesting.
Answer: Updating with some new answers, since the law is changing fast in this area: Docracy has open sourced its own terms and various privacy policies specific to mobile apps, annotations included. We also published a drafting guide. Other companies that famously allow intelligent copying of their terms are Quora and Wordpress. There are some free and paid privacy policy assemblers available online, I personally like privacychoice.org and iubenda.com.
Disclosure: I work for Docracy
Answer: If you have a legal team (but you don't, or you wouldn't be asking) check with them.  I have honestly just taken and modified the terms from sites that are similar to mine.
While I don't know of any automated tools, I don't think the TOS on a site varies much from one to the other unless you have some pretty unique public content. When we were deploying sites the boilerplate we used didn't change more than half the time.
Answer: We got ours from here. It's customised and was cheap(er than getting a legal team to do it for us).
Answer: This free Terms and conditions generator does the job for me.


What is the difference between 行き先 and 旅行先?

Question: According to jisho.org, both 行き先 and 旅行先 both have the meaning "destination". My intuitive guess is that 旅行先 is the destination of a trip, like "this cruise's destination is Bali" and 行き先 would be a more generic endpoint, like the destination of a train or a taxi ride. Can people clarify the difference in usage between these two words?
Comment: One difference I can think of right now is... you can say [旅行先]{りょこうさき} / [旅先]{たびさき}で買った, 見た, 会った... "(something/ someone) I bought/saw/met while travelling", but not 行き先で / 旅行の行き先で買った/見た/会った...
Answer: You are right. 行き先 is generally a destination, and 旅行先 is a destination of a trip. That's all.
But if you want to say "the destination of the trip", 旅行の行き先 is far better than 旅行の旅行先, as you should avoid repeating the same word.
Therefore the word 旅行先 is not so common. One of the good places to use this word is (which I found by googling it), where you want to bring both 旅行 and its 行き先 to the context at the same time, as in 人気の海外旅行先ランキング that is a title of a webpage.
Answer: A 行き先 is the place your transportation takes you. When you get off, your journey is done, and that's the end of it.
A 旅行先 is the place you go on a trip away from home - you get there, and then you stay there for a while, and then you come back. This is typically for vacations, and a good translation might be 'vacation destination'. The core idea is that you're not 'done' with your trip once you get there - the point is being there once you arrive, not going in the first place.
A short example might clear it up. If you're going on vacation to the Philippines, you have a 旅行先 (the Philippines), but the plane you take has a 行き先 (probably Manila, though you might also say 'the Philippines').