Is It Safe to Unmount Disk 1 Debian Linux From Disk 0 Windows 7

Question: Background:

I have an Asus P67 Sabertooth motherboard. The motherboard supports 6GB SATA.
I have two 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 64MB Cache SATA Drives.
I have a Plextor PX-880SA CD/DVD Optical SATA.

Both hard drives are on the 6GB Channels.
I DO NOT dual boot ... I simply use the uEFI BIOS quick key to access drive selection on POST to determine which drive ~ OS I want to use. In Linux, I have disabled OS prober in Grub ... so if I run update-grub it won't try to wipe out my Windows MBR on disk 0.
Disk 0 is Windows 7.
Disk 1 is my Debian 6.
==================================================================================

Disk 0: Online

Vol C = Sys Reserved for W7 = 100MB NTFS
  Vol C = W7 (C:) = 244GB NTFS
  Vol D = Data (D:) = 342 GB NTFS
  346GB = Unallocated

Disk 1: Online

(/boot / /etc /home) = 500GB
  346GB = Unallocated

CD-ROM 0 :

DVD (E:)

==================================================================================
When I start Windows 7 I can see Disk 1 as 'Active' which ... concerns me ... I don't want Windows to have any access to this disk. I want to Disk 0 and Disk 1 completely separate.
Is it safe to unmount my Linux drive from Windows 7 using diskpart? Is this even necessary to achieve my goal?
Answer: Windows defaults to mounting every disk that it can; as on disk1 it can not find any partitions that it can read you can safely remove it. However, there should be no problems with windows "accessing" the disk.


Online free bug tracking tools?

Question: I need to share some Bugs and Test cases with someone. Is there any more professional way of doing that rather sending it over MS Excel?
I'm looking for some free cloud based test management tool.
Previously I used demo.testlink.com, but unfortunately now it is not there.
Comment: One of my favorites is using GitHub Issues. It's a bug tracking tool you get for free (public) with each repo you create.
Comment: Do you want it host yourself (I would prefer Trac) or do you need free hosting?
Comment: If you just want to share the text of some test cases, Google Docs would be more convenient than Excel.
Comment: Why this topic has "-1" rating?
Answer: If you don't have private issues, Trello is simple and fast to share and keep track of things.
Answer: For Bug tracking there are multiple tools to use :

Visual Studio Team Services - up to 5 users
One of the most famous tools is bugzilla, you can reach Bugheaven for free use
Check AIVEO, I think they offer free use for a maximum of 3 users
Answer: There are a lot of free bug tracking tools in the market. You have to do some research and see which one's fits your criteria.

Redmine - This has a simple UI but is very powerful with it's features and plugins - the Gnatt Chart being one of the most popular features.
Mantis - It is built in PHP. The "My View" display in MantisBT shows unassigned bug tickets, a project timeline (similar to an activity feed) and lists recently modified and resolved tickets.
Pivotal Tracker - Pivotal is free for up to 3 users. If you want to scale up, then you need to pay for more users.
YouTrack - This is another bug management tool, which has been developed by JetBrains. It is similar to Pivotal, in the scene that it is free for small teams ( free up to 10 users and 5GB storage). If you want to scale up, then you need to pay.

You can also get a list of Open Source Bug Management tools here
Answer: There are some great + free bug tracking tools out there. I recommend to check out the following open source solutions:

Redmine
trac
WebIssues

There's a full comparison of free open-source bug tracking tools in this article.
Answer: One of the most interesting systems I had come across is XStudio. They offer a community version, which allows up to 200 tests to be entered. It also allows you to document your defects, requirements, test cases, and test results. I highly recommend it. I am hoping that at my workplace we will be using this system eventually.
Answer: There's also Backlog - a bug tracking tool that's free for up to 10 users. The tool works in a browser, you set up a project and add the bugs as issues in that project, and notify the users that you select. They can add comments etc. and so can you - so there's a thread of comments for the record and track resolution progress. Users you notify will need to be added to your account, and it's free to use for up to 10 users.
Comment: Please edit your answer to give more information about Backlog, particularly how this would help the OP more than the accepted answer.
Answer: Although there are tools that do both (bug management and test management), you will find that most of the more popular test management tools choose to integrate with bug-tracking software. Therefore allowing each tool to focus on what they do best.
Some of the more modern issue tracking tools to consider are:

Trello - Great if all you want is an easy-to-use free tool to track bugs.
Linear - Specifically for issue tracking and they have their own app.
ClickUp, monday.com or asana - Modern tools that have more project management functionality, but allow easy tracking of issues.

If none of these tools meat your needs, then here's a list of additional defect management tools.

Online free bug tracking tools?


Does the post-WW2 international system imply a constant growth of the number of countries?

Question: Since the end of the WW2 we have seen the emergence of lots of new countries, and the trend continues to exist. Separatist movements and dissolutions continue to exist and periodically increase number of countries. At the same time, there were almost no cases when the number was decreased (unification or absorption). And even in such cases united countries didn't exist for long (e.g. United Arab Republics). This raises the question on whether the post-WW2 international system imply a constant growth of the number of countries or we may see a couple of mergers of states in future?
Comment: This is a bit confusing. Are you just asking whether an increase is something we should expect, or are you asking whether there is something about the "international system" that *causes* the increase?
Answer: Not necessarily, but assuming the order holds the forcible reduction in number of countries by annexation should not happen. The ones that are at risk are those next to a superpower with ambitions - such as Ukraine and Taiwan. One of the few annexations that has stuck is that of Tibet, for example.
Many of the "new" states arose from the collapse of states that were put together after WW2 (especially in the middle east), or collapsing empires (USSR). Eventually this will stabilise.
So it's more a question of how likely states are to unify peacefully in a stable international order. This is not impossible, but it will be a slow process. Possibly the EU will eventually become a "superstate" union like the US.
Comment: @F1Krazy On the other hand many Germans, at least of those I know, are in favor of the EU superstate. Not necessarily tomorrow, but eventually. The UK was always an outlier. An old survey, can't find anything newer atm:  https://www.zeit.de/politik/2011-09/survey-united-states-of-europe
Comment: "Possibly the EU will eventually become a "superstate" union like the US." No chance. That very possibility is one of the driving factors behind the rise of right-wing nationalism across Europe - people are scared of losing their sovereignty to Brussels. Source: I'm a Brit and I've been watching that rise occur in real-time my whole life, culminating in the Brexit vote three years ago.
Comment: Well, in the case of Ukraine, the number of nations was not reduced. Instead the nation of Ukraine was reduced.
Answer: Here's the big list of state mergers, both successful and non-.
Of the successful mergers since WW2, notable examples include Malaysia, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Yemen, and of course Germany.  Among others.
On that basis, the answer to your question is No.


Options for a kid to write a 3D game in Python?

Question: I'm a programmer and would like to help my son learn to program a 3D game in Python that can run slowly on the RasPi or quickly on a PC. I thought about using the RasPi edition of Minecraft, but it looks like that will only work on the RasPi. Are there any other simple options?
Comment: Ditto the recommendation that you start with 2D.  This is true for everybody: the right way to learn is to start with 2D and progress to 3D.  The wrong way is to pretend doing things the right way does not matter because you want to write 3D games so that is what you are going to do no matter what!  **It is not just a matter of doing some extra trig,** although that is an aspect, it ain't the biggest part. Also 2D is going to be much more viable on the pi -- note that openGL does have a 2D mode (and again, *any and every* course or book on learning GL starts in 2D).
Comment: See [this question](http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/8509/can-python-control-normal-minecraft-or-only-the-raspi-edition?rq=1). The accepted answer links to instructions on getting the MinecraftPiEdition API working with normal Minecraft.
Comment: This is related to my other question [here](http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/8509/can-python-control-normal-minecraft-or-only-the-raspi-edition)
Answer: I don't recommend starting him with 3D gaming.  It's difficult and requires a lot of advanced math.  A lot of 2d applications and programs are probably going to be more his speed, other than that...
Have you considered experimenting with blender?  It's open source so if it doesn't have a RPi version you could compile it yourself and it has support for Python integration.  It's not gameplay per say, but it could do that into mix of scripting and 3d visualization.
You can build a 3d model (some are actually pro quality work) and then animate it using python.
Comment: Isn't Blender just a 3D modeling app? I was thinking I could deal with the rotations and all that complexity.
Comment: I can be just a modeling app, but people make entire videos and movies off the program.  It's not a game per-say, but I don't really know of any simple game platform that you could do a simple build for.  It's a pretty advanced project.

The thing that struck me about blender is that you can make model and script how they move.  Those models could then be imported to a game later if so desired.


How to test video card memory

Question: I want to test the memory of my video card because there are vertical lines on my screen. I have done some basic troubleshooting and it seems that the problem is in the video card. I want to validate that the issue is the video card by testing its memrory. I have found software that is used for Nvidia cards with CUDA support, but my card is the Nvidia GeForce 7600, which has no CUDA support.
Answer: I've used the creatively-named Video Memory Stress Test app a handful of times while twiddling my video card's VRAM speeds. Unlike g80memtest, it doesn't make use of CUDA (though it can!) and should work fine for your card. Like standard Memtest, a couple of hours should be sufficient to see if it actually is your VRAM causing the problem, or something else.
http://majorgeeks.com/Video_Memory_Stress_Test__d5896.html
If VMST doesn't find any issues, you could also try FurMark, which is an extremely intense shader processor load. It doesn't provide any feedback as to whether or not there are any rendering errors, but if your artifacts intensify or if your system crashes, then it's almost definitely a sure sign of faulty hardware.
Good luck!
Answer: For this type of scenario, I've previously had good results with SiS Software's SANDRA product, which conducts benchmarking and diagnostic tests on all parts of your computer, including video card tests. There is a free version, but this will only give basic information.
For more product information, see: http://www.sisoftware.net/?d=news&f=2010_release&l=en&a=
Answer: Tried VMT too on Radeon R9 290 card, but couldn't test memory above 1.5 Gb and GPU-Z utility gave me some strange readings about VRAM usage (about 250 Mb used during the test, while there should've been more than 1.5 Gb). Also it reported a crystal clean results on a definitely faulty card (it was artifacting right at the desktop before and during the test), which makes me think it doesn't actually test anything on modern cards.
So I've decided to try OpenCL:
https://github.com/ihaque/memtestCL
Also, for NVidia card there is MemtestG80 tool:
https://github.com/ihaque/memtestG80
Sadly, your card doesn't support OpenCL or CUDA, so there doesn't seem to be an easy way to distinguish VRAM and GPU errors. Maybe some open-source video drivers or custom firmwares may give a clue.
Answer: There is a free (of charge) tool by MSI called Kombustor. Depending on your needs it may be good enough to stress your card.
Comment: What does it do? Test GPU & video RAM only, or together with everything else?

How to test video card memory


Detect arp-cache poisioner / spoofer

Question: The situation is: a hall full of 200-300 people, one of them is performing an arp-cache poisioning attack. Or messing with my network over wifi in any way.
Is there a way how to determine the location of him? Using some kind of directional antenna or something? I dont need to be very accurate, when I have the direction, I will probably find the suspicious one.
I know that this is almost impossible, but if anyone know something to suggest and try, I would really appriciated that.
Thanks for any ideas.
Answer: You need to capture and analysis network traffic using Wireshark to detect the source of ARP poisoning attack. Check out this article. The idea is to use this filter :
<code>arp.duplicate-address-frame
</code>
There is also an other solution in this video
Answer: Play around with kismet - with a directional antenna or a bit of walking around you should be able to locate where the sources of the arp traffic are strongest - one of them being a legitimate user, the other not so much.
Answer: Without any hardware but your PC (with linux), you could

determine his mac address with Wireshark and look his signal strength with airodump-ng as you go through the hall. Problem: it's a hall, so probably highly resonating.
check the vendor of his wifi card (with his mac address) to know what PC he has, although he surely used mac-changer (and even if he didn't that would force you to verify all the manufacturers that embedded this specific wifi-card)
Honeypot. Run a little webserver on your computer with some Metasploit' http auxiliarys embedded and connect to it from another computer. With some luck if he is monitoring the traffic with Wireshark he will see it and will connect to it (a tiny little server without domain name, running locally is always something curious and worth checking). If he uses the same browser for his everyday routine, you will be able to catch his Gmail adress, Facebook name and maybe even his passwords (yet, it's been several years since i tested this and i don't know if you can still grab passwords with those modules).

Yet if he is a careful attacker, none of these will work (except maybe the first one to some extent)
Good luck !

Detect arp-cache poisioner / spoofer


Why can't I set a black object as the sample when setting custom white balance?

Question: If I set black color as a sample in the custom white balance and then take a picture.The picture has a shade of green color. could you please tell me why?
Comment: more details please. programm (or in camera), size of sample (area or one pixel), maybe a sample image?
Answer: The black you used was very likely not truly neutral but had a warm tint tending towards magenta, in which case green would be its complement.
Answer: White balance gets corrected by adjusting the relative intensities of red, green, and blue. The ratios are detected in the sample you provide, and the inverse is multiplied to each pixel to even things out. A proper white balance depends on the accuracy of these ratios.
It's hard to get accurate ratios when you measure near black, because a difference of +/- 1 in any of the values can make a huge difference to the ratio. The difference between 1/2 and 1/3 is .1667, while the difference between 127/128 and 127/129 is only .0077.
This means that the brighter your white balance target is the better, but only to a point. If any of the red, green, or blue components hits the rails and maxes out, the numbers will be off and the ratios will be inaccurate again. The best target for white balance is a light gray.
Answer: Because black has red, green and blue channel values near zero.
The white balance takes relative values of the color channels as a reference. For black a little higher noise in one channel drastically distorts the relationships. Example for black: red = 0, green = 1, green/red = 1/0 = infinity. So the relationship between red and green is not defined. Example for gray: red = 128, green = 120, green/red = 0.94 (well defined value).
Comment: Even when the ratio is defined, it is not as exact when the numbers are small. The difference between 1/2 and 1/3 is much greater than the difference between 120/128 and 120/129.
Comment: @MarkRansom You're correct. What you say probably belongs in an answer, not a comment.
Answer: What you stumbled upon is called UniWB (see https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/2421/32110) and can be used to judge exposure in the luminance histogram more accurately. (when shooting Raw, the WB is only influencing the preview image anyway)
Basically, by taking a black picture as custom WB, the weights for all three colour channels are set to 1.0. Since a typical Bayer pattern contains 2 green pixels (since our eyes are most sensitive to green as well), this results is a green cast in the image.
Comment: i should like to know the reason for the downvote? this is exactly how i experimented with uniwb when i read the article from guillermo lujik.
Comment: The procedure from the question is *not* how you set UniWB, so this answer doesn't seem relevant even if the effect is coincidentally similar. But it wasn't my downvote.
Comment: Basically, this answer may turn out to be right. In the low light conditions when the variance of the WB image is too high (and black image is pure noise!), the firmware may fall back to use UniWB.
Comment: it doesn't fall back, and it isn't coincidence. setting custom wb sets the factors so that the reference image is a neutral grey. if you have an image with all 0,0,0 the factors will all be 1, just like when you have 255,255,255. my answer explains why the images are green, like the querent wanted to know.


different tire ratios

Question: I have a 2006 GMC Sierra 1500 extended cab 4x2.  I have 4 extremely worn tires.  We are traveling from Texas panhandle to Carlsbad NM so I need to replace them.  The problem is I can only afford used tires at the moment and only 2.  I am having a hard time finding the same size. What would be the effect of putting 245/ 75/ R17 on the front and leaving the 245/ 70 / r17 on the back? Also when I eventually get all 245 75 R17 how bad would it be if my spare was still 245/70/R17 until I could find one more?
Answer: Along with what @Zaid said, which I agree with, there are two other aspects to worry about:

Antilock Brake System (ABS)
Traction control (I'm not sure your Sierra has this, but it bears mentioning)

The problem with the ABS is, with that much of a difference, your ABS will believe there is a fault with the system and shut it down or might believe the smaller tires are losing traction and apply brakes to help gain traction (even though you haven't lost any).
Pretty much the same idea with traction control. If the computer believes the rear tires are losing traction, it will pull power from the engine to compensate. I don't believe your Sierra has traction control, but if it does it has drive by wire (no direct cable from your gas pedal to the throttle body), which means the computer has the control. There is no amount of pressure you can apply to the pedal when it decides to cut power which is going to overcome this. (For reference: I own an '06 Silverado Z71)
The first fear is a definite. The second not so much for you. Since Zaid did the calculations, I'm pretty sure these tires should work for you. His answer deals with whether or not they will work, while mine deals with why it is important to worry about such things.
Answer: Something to watch out for
Since you intend to buy second-hand, one thing to watch out for is the age of the tire. From personal experience in desert climate, standard tires usually don't last beyond 3-4 years. A premium tire might buy you an extra year.
See this question to know how to tell the age of a tire.

Putting on a different size
A rule of thumb used by some tire retailers is to not alter the overall diameter by more than 3%.
So the diameter of your original tire is:
17 * 25.4 + 2 * ( 245 * 0.70 ) = 800 mm

If you go for a 245/75:
17 * 25.4 + 2 * ( 245 * 0.75 ) = 776 mm

This is an increase of a whisker over 3%. The rule of thumb recommends says that 245/75 in this case is on the border.
I think you should be fine with this tire size.
Comment: This online [tire size calculator](http://www.sizemytires.com/calculators/compare) is a pretty nifty utility for such problems
Answer: Since the vehicle is a rear-wheel drive, placing the larger wheels on the front would have the advantage of maintaining normal sized wheels on the driving axle. This means the drive-train is working at its intended rotation. Placing larger wheels on the driven axle would mean the engine would have to rev lower to produce the same speed. This is probably a good idea for a long trip, but depends a bit on the characteristics of the vehicle (gear ratios and how much it is loaded).
Placing the larger (and newer) wheels on the front also has the advantage of making sure you have steering even if or when you encounter adverse weather conditions or a bad surface. Needing to quickly swerve and finding out those front wheels are bent on going straight forward is not a pleasant experience.
Since weight is transferred forward when braking, this would also give you slightly better braking. However, this should be tempered by the fact that bad wheels on the rear end could very well unbalance the truck and have you broadside across the traffic lanes. Not good.
Having bad wheels on a rear-wheel drive also increases the risk of tire spin, the rear end snaking on acceleration or simply not being capable of starting it up a steep grade.
If it were my choice to make, all things being taken into perspective I would be putting the "good" wheels on the front axle, and keeping the original size "bad" wheels on the rear. And preparing to stop for a rest whenever a summer rain-shower came anywhere near me.
That being said, making a long trip with bad wheels is never a good idea. Besides the obvious physical danger that you are exposing yourself to, you are also exposing other road users to a similar danger. What happens if your heavy truck flips into a small Japanese car at speed? (Nothing against Jap cars, but they do tend to be smaller than a light truck.)
Another consideration that you may not have thought of is: what happens if you get a blow-out -or even worse, two blow-outs- on those old tires during the journey? Even if you manage to stop the vehicle with no further damage done, is your budget up to having these tires changed at a road-side garage? You will be looking to use the spare on the first, but what about the second?
So perhaps the best recommendation would be either to set off the trip if at all possible, or look for any different means of transport your budget allows you.

different tire ratios


What coatings do mobile camera lenses have?

Question: I have been using iPhone's camera since a long time and I have always wondered, what coatings or filters do mobile cams have in place (if the have any). The reason I ask is sometimes my iPhone is able to take better pictures of sky, clouds and the beach than my SLR can. In the latter, I have to adjust exposure, add polarisers/NDs to get exact same kind of colours, contrast and saturation. Anyone having technical info?
Comment: Just for your knowledge, the iPhone 5 outermost camera lens element is actually made from a sapphire crystal which makes it quite tough and very scratch proof. :)
Comment: Unless I carry diamonds in my pockets :P
Answer: The lens elements will have anti-reflective coatings, as all modern lenses do. There may or may not be an IR filter over the sensor, certainly many early camera phones didn't bother with IR filters (using the camera you could see IR LEDs such as the ones found in the wii sensor bar). Apparently Apple only introduced an IR filter in the iPhone 4S and later models.
The lack of an IR filter might actually improve your skies as there is less IR and move UV in the sky, so you ought to get slightly darker skies provided the metering picks up IR.
There may be a UV filter built in (though this is very unlikely if there's not even an IR filter), there certainly wont be a polarizing filter. The differences you observe are likely to do with the JPEG engine on camera phones which will be optimised to produce contrasty images with rich colour saturation, whereas DSLRs aim to produce more accurate, natural colours.
Answer:
sometimes my iPhone is able to take better pictures of sky, clouds and the beach than my SLR can. In the latter, I have to adjust exposure, add polarisers/NDs to get exact same kind of colours, contrast and saturation.

This will not be due to the coatings on the lens but to the image processing, specifically the contrast and colour saturation.  It appears that the default saturation and contrast settings applied in the iPhone are more pleasing to your eye than any of the contrast and saturation settings you are able to get on your SLR so far.  Some people like contrasty, saturated colours, and it suits some types of pictures well.
The equivalent on your SLR is probably to turn the contrast and colour saturation right up.  That said, on my SLR I leave my contrast and colour saturation at sane defaults and do any boosting in post-processing (indeed, I shoot in JPEG+RAW so I can even re-apply it to the raw image data if I wanted to).

I have been using iPhone's camera since a long time and I have always wondered, what coatings or filters do mobile cams have in place (if the have any)

They will have anti-reflective coatings.  I don't know if the outside surface of the camera (the one constantly rubbing against the inside of your pocket) has such a coating, but it is normal for camera lenses, even on phones and compact cameras, to have anti-reflective coating on the surfaces of the lens elements.  The only thing that anti-reflective coatings should do is reduce flare and ghosting.  Scratches on the outside surface of the camera lens will increase fogging.


Kegging, does the beer need to be clear?

Question: Going to start kegging after many years of bottling beer.  Watching YouTube, a brewer spoke of letting the beer "clear" for a few weeks before serving. I assumed he meant that he was cold crashing it prior to serving, but on his video he said that he fermented in only one bucket and used its bottom drain to fill the keg. Isn't it going to be nasty with hops and yeast?  I clear my beer as part of the my process, so, I don't think I'll run into that issue.  I think I'm missing a step here can anyone help fill in the blanks?
Answer: You want to fine your beer in the fermentor as much as possible.
A final finning is offten done in the keg with cold crash and gelitan. Because of the narrow keg usually a week is good to carbonate from top down and fine at the same time. Then the first couple pints are sludge and then clear from there. I prefer to fine this way in the fermentor and save those couple pints, also I prefer to carbonate using a stone or the out tube which stirs up sediment so the beer needs fined before kegging.
I think the reference to bottom drain, is to the pick up tube on the keg not the fermentor. Its best to put beer into the out port on the keg. This reduces exposure to oxygen and infection, being better than opening the lid and using a hose. If you fill the keg with sanitizer, then purge with co2 the beer doesn't get any contact with air. When filing this way You need to release the co2 as beer enters, I air lock the "in" tube into starsan like you would a fermentor, pulling the safety release valve works too but with a slight risk of airborne infection.
Answer: Seriously,
Just throw it into a keg, slap the CO2 on it...Wait a Week... Pour a pint, throw it out, pour another pint, and enjoy!
Don't make it harder than it is, or any more complicated.


Why does adding a dropout layer improve deep/machine learning performance, given that dropout suppresses some neurons from the model?

Question: If removing some neurons results in a better performing model, why not use a simpler neural network with fewer layers and fewer neurons in the first place? Why build a bigger, more complicated model in the beginning and suppress parts of it later?
Answer: The function of dropout is to increase the robustness of the model and also to remove any simple dependencies between the neurons.
Neurons are only removed for a single pass forward and backward through the network - meaning their weights are synthetically set to zero for that pass, and so their errors are as well, meaning that the weights are not updated.
Dropout also works as a form of regularisation, as it is penalising the model for its complexity, somewhat.
I would recommend having a read of the Dropout section in Michael Nielsen's Deep Learning book (freely available), which gives nice intuition and also has very helpful interactive diagrams/explanations. He explains that:

Dropout is a radically different technique for regularization. Unlike L1 and L2 regularization, dropout doesn't rely on modifying the cost function. Instead, in dropout we modify the network itself.

Here is a nice summary article. From that article:

Some Observations:

Dropout forces a neural network to learn more robust features that are useful in conjunction with many different random subsets of the other neurons.

Dropout roughly doubles the number of iterations required to converge. However, training time for each epoch is less.
With H hidden units, each of which can be dropped, we have
2^H possible models. In testing phase, the entire network is considered and each activation is reduced by a factor p.

Example
Imagine I ask you to make me a cup of tea - you might always use your right hand to pour the water, your left eye to measure the level of water and then your right hand again to stir the tea with a spoon. This would mean your left hand and right eye serve little purpose. Using dropout would e.g. tie your right hand behind your back - forcing you to use your left hand. Now after making me 20 cups of tea, with either one eye or one hand taken out of action, you are better trained at using everything available. Maybe you will later be forced to make tea in a tiny kitchen, where it is only possible to use the kettle with your left arm... and after using dropout, you have experience doing that! You have become more robust to unseen data.
Comment: @N.IT - as far as I am aware, there is not well-defined method that will find the *best* level of dropout or how many layers - apart from jsut trying out many combinations. As with other methods of regularisation and architecture exploration, you will likely get best results by training a model and comparing the training/validation loss curves. Check out this [explanation around the topic](https://bit.ly/2zbtYtz).
Comment: how to determine the best dropout value for multi class classification? and how to determine the best number of dropout layer?
Comment: Great answer. To be more concrete with regards to your kitchen analogy, Dropout is used during training only, not during inference. Hence, the complex model is not partially utilized.
Comment: i wsa typing this reply wiwth my eyes close. gyes more training neede. nwws moew seopour.
Answer: Another way of looking at what dropout does is that it is like a slab-and-spike prior for the coefficient for a covariate (that is some complex interaction term of the original covariates with some complicated functional transformations) in a Bayesian model. This is the interpretation proposed by Yarin Gal in his thesis (see his list of publications).
Here is a brief hand-waving argument for why this is so:

In those batches, where a neuron is eliminated, the coefficient for feature/covariate (constructed by connection in the neural network going into the neuron) is zero (spike at zero).
In those batches, where the neuron is present, the coefficient is unrestricted (improper flat prior = slab).
Averaged across all batches, you get a spike-and-slab prior.

Why would we want a slab-and-spike prior? It induces a Bayesian model averaging between a neutral network without that neuron and one with it in. In other words, it lets us express uncertainty about whether the neutral network really needs to have its full possible complexity and appropriately takes this uncertainty into account in the predictions. This addresses the major issue of neutral networks being able to overfit to data (though of course it is not the only possible way to achieve that).
Comment: Good point. Will update the answer.
Answer: Dropout does not actually removes neurons, its just that those particular neurons don't play any role (don't get activated) for the given batch of data.
Example - Suppose there is a road of 8 lanes - When Trucks come, they pass through lanes 1,2,4,6,7, when Cars come, they pass through lanes 2,3,4,7,8 and when Bikes come, they pass through lanes 1,2,5,8. So regardless of any vehicle, all lanes are there, but only some of them are used.
Similarly, all neurons are used in whole model, but only a subset of neurons are activated for a particular batch of data. And the model is not cut down later, the model complexity remains as it is.
Why to use dropout?
As given in Deep learning book by Ian Goodfellow,

dropout is more effective than other
standard computationally inexpensive regularizers, such as weight decay, filter norm constraints and sparse activity regularization.

He also says-

One advantage of dropout is that it is very computationally cheap.
Another significant advantage of dropout is that it does not significantly limit the type of model or training procedure that can be used. It works well with nearly any model that uses a distributed representation and can be trained with stochastic gradient descent. This includes feedforward neural networks, probabilistic models such as restricted Boltzmann machines (Srivastava et al., 2014), and recurrent neural networks (Bayer and Osendorfer, 2014; Pascanu et al., 2014a).

This book says-

The core idea is that introducing noise in the output values of a layer can
break up happenstance patterns that aren't significant, which the network will start memorizing if no noise is present.
Comment: I have edited the question to use the word suppress and not remove. The question remains. Why build so many lanes when only some of them are used in the end?
Comment: @user781486 By some of them, it means some of them for each batch of data, but all of them will be used if you consider whole data. Like in my example, all lanes 1-8 are used if you take combined set of lane numbers for each vehicle.
Answer: The dropout layer indiscriminately culls a specified portion of neurons, decreasing the representational capacity of the model in question. This prevents the network from fitting complex nonlinear decision boundaries(i.e. the "noise" in the dataset), thus preventing(or ameliorating) overfitting.
Answer: Dropout helps improving performance of a machine learning model for the following reasons:

Making Network Simpler: It makes the network simpler hence, prevents over fitting.
Better than Using a Single Simple Network: It is better than manually re-designing a simpler network because once you have designed a particular architecture, you cannot change it until the whole training process ends i.e, for all the epochs the network architecture is fixed. But in dropout the network is being simpler in various ways in each epoch. Say for 1000 epochs you are actually trying with 1000 types of simpler network's variations.
Learn in Many Ways: The input and output of the network don't get changed, the only thing is changing is the mapping between them. So just imagine that, the network is learning the same thing in various different ways. So just like this network, for us the humans- whenever we think of the same problem in different ways we automatically learn to generalize it and our overall knowledge and understanding also improves and the similar thing occurs to the network. As during the dropout process in each epoch randomly some weights (connection from a neuron to another neuron of next layer) are getting cut, hence, we are forcing the network to learn using the existing connections that are still available and thus the network is learning how to analyze the same problem from different perspectives.


Final trigger that ended the Age of Gods(FS/N), World binding anchors beside Rhongomyniad

Question: So I am helping with providing ideas and checking for plotholes on FFN. The writer I am helping is planning on reintorducing the Age of Gods during the 5th Grail War so I need to know the original trigger that led to the end of the first one. I know that the barrier that seperates the Reverse side of the world where the gods/divine spirits and the general more OP beings of the Fate series reside is being maintained due to the exsistence of the real Rhongomyniad as a pillar of light that acts like an Anchor. Also are there any other anchors beside Rhongomyniad, if yes than what are they?
Answer:
so I need to know the original trigger that led to the end of the first one

As indicated on the wikia under World > History > Age of Gods the transition of the Age of Gods (genesis) to the Age of Man (0AD) came in 3 phases

Deterioration

the Umbral Star passed by Earth allowing Sefar to invade in 12,000 BC, killing most sentient life, a large number of gods and plundering the vast majority of data from the Moon Cell

Separation

the weakened gods tried to create a link between them and humans by creating Gilgamesh, who ultimately rebelled and encouraged the complete separation of the gods and the humans
the gods ended up loosing their powers and became Divine Spirits
the decline of Mystery (which is how the world operated back then) is attributed to the demise of the King of Magic, Solomon

Trigger

in 700 BC, there is some unknown Trigger that caused the end of the Age of Gods (this has yet to be revealed)

so while the trigger to the very end of the age is not yet know it was probably some event which accelerated the age's end, however we can point to the fact that the Gods lost alot of power in the world after Sefar's invasion which lead to their downfall.
the page also lists an Age of Fairies which looks to be in between the Age of Gods and Age of Man but there is little information on this aside from the fact it has already ended, however given it's position between the 2 on the World page we might have a hint on when the Age of Fairies on the Rhongomyniad page

Being the "king" that stood at the final moments of illusion and the Age of Gods, King Arthur possesses this Holy Lance that conceals such a tremendous power.

given that Vivian (the Lady of the Lake who gave Arthur/Arturia Excalibur) is a fairy we could speculate that Arthur's/Arturia's rule and legend is during the Age of Fairies

Also are there any other anchors beside Rhongomyniad, if yes than what are they?

according to the wikia page on the Reverse Side of the World there may be

Rhongomyniad is one of the "anchors" that fasten the planet together to ensure that the world of humans on the outermost layer of the world can't be destroyed by those on the Reverse Side who wish to reenact the Age of Gods.

Source: Reverse Side of the World (2nd Paragraph)
the use of the wording one of the "anchors" suggests to be there are more. however currently we don't know what the other anchors are or what form they take (or even if they are wielded in the world like Rhongomyniad with Arthur/Arturia and Grey)
Comment: in regards to possible anchors, i would not be surprised if down the road Ea is revealed to be an Anchor given the name of it's attack *Enuma Elish: The Star of Creation that Split Heaven and Earth*
Comment: Yeah, heaven is used to mention the Reverse Side of the World at times.
Comment: For what it's worth, 700 B.C. is about the time that the Etruscans rise to supremacy, who would later go on to be (integrated by) the Romans. These would displace Grecian theology with the (similar) Roman theology, and would rapidly advance technologically. Of course this "trigger" might not have been something as metaphysical as society turning away from the old gods and towards technology over magic, but it seems a nice thought at least.


Why can I access to my C: or D: drives from Ubuntu?

Question: Why can I access to my C: or D: drives from Ubuntu when I install Ubuntu 14.04. Why does this happen?
Comment: If you don't want them to be visible you can tell ubuntu not to mount them. But if it is for security that you don't want then to be seen by ubuntu, then you need to add security at the MS-Windows end.
Answer: Linux can read (and write) to many filesystems, including ntfs, which is likely how your windows partitions are formatted.  Many OS installers (including Ubuntu apparently) will scan your disks for any partitions that Linux knows how to mount, and set those up to be mounted at boot, which is why you can access them.
Answer: Ubuntu is capable of reading and writing files stored on Windows formatted partitions. These partitions are normally formatted with NTFS, but are sometimes formatted with FAT32. You will also see FAT16 on other devices.
General Considerations
Ubuntu will show files and folders in NTFS/FAT32 filesystems which are hidden in Windows. Consequently, important hidden system files in the Windows C:\ partition will show up if this is mounted. Since it is all-too-easy to accidentally modify or delete files which are essential for Windows, it is advisable to mount your Windows C:\ partition as seldom as possible, preferably not at all, or read-only by configuring /etc/fstab (see below). If you have data which you want to access regularly from both Windows and Ubuntu, it is better to create a separate data partition for this, formatted NTFS.
Whether you write to your Windows C:\ partition or a shared NTFS data partition, be aware that if you are using Windows 7, and Windows 7 is in a hibernated state when you write to the NTFS partition from Ubuntu, you will lose all your changes. This is because when Windows 7 is hibernated it writes the system state to a file stored on disk and restores from that file when the system is re-awakened, thus restoring the whole fileystem to a state before any changes made from Ubuntu. In Windows 7 you must avoid using hibernation. With Windows 8, the situation is more complex in that, by default, it uses a hybrid hibernation/shutdown when you shut the system down. Any changes made by Ubuntu will be lost when you reboot into Ubuntu.
With both Windows 7 and Windows 8 (when installed to a legacy mbr partition table) there is usually a 100-200MB boot partition labelled "SYSTEM". Do not mount it - you do not need to. Similarly it is highly advisable to leave any recovery partitions unmounted.


Using North Korean Artists' Music - Copyright Issues

Question: I am interested in using North Korean artists' work (mostly music) for commercial purposes. I cannot contact them so I don't know how to handle copyright issues. Even if there are such problems in this case. Are North Korean artists even protected by copyright laws internationally given the uneasy situation between the DPRK and the rest of the world?
Answer: Yes, North Koreans are protected by copyright law even though North Korea is not a signatory to the Berne Convention.
Assuming that you are in a country that is a signatory to the Berne Convention (which you probably are) the relevant consideration is the "Country of Origin". Only if the work was published in North Korea (or other non-signatory countries) and not published in a signatory country within 30 days is there no copyright protection - given that you have the music and presumably didn't go to North Korea to get it; it has been published in a signatory country and the author has copyright protection if this happened within 30 days of it being published in North Korea (which you have no way of determining).
The chances of a North Korean national being able to protect those rights is somewhat slim of course.
Comment: What if the song is uploaded to YouTube from a signatory country by someone else than the artists? Does it mean publication, so that the artists or the uploader of the video is defended by copyrights?
Comment: @S.Marcell It is publication and copyright always vests in the artist unless traded or given away
Comment: According to the US Copyright Office Circular 38b, North Korea signed the Berne Convention in 2003.
Answer: Without going into technical points at this time, you can give some credit to North Korean artists which will protect their moral rights, given the fact that you are willing to contact them.
Also I believe you won't be ripping down their entire work and will be creating your own piece of work, that'll give you some copyright too in your work and combined with some credit to korean artists, you 'll play safe & straight.


2006 Mazda 3 low brake pedal

Question: I have an problem with the brakes after the ABS has been activated on snowy roads the brake pedal drops about 75% and stays there for quite a while. Eventually it comes back up to a regular pedal again, until the ABS is activated and then the pedal drops again.  The last time I lost the pedal it hasn't come back up to normal for 2 weeks now. The brakes still work fine, just a very low pedal. I have bled the brakes once and the car had new pads and rotors 6 months ago
Answer: A friend of mine just had his ABS unit replaced for this problem. We therorise that the dump valve is stuck open. Because the valve is open the break pressure is exposed to the accumulator. During an ABS stop the accumulator bleeds access pressure into the accumulator. The accumulator is in essence a piston and spring. When the ABS event is over the dump valve will return fluid back into the system. If the dump valve is stuck open then the breaks won't engage until the accumulator piston bottoms out.
You can try having a shop preform ABS bleeds by activating it with a scan tool. This may help but probably won't.

2006 Mazda 3 low brake pedal


How do I remove the hair, dust and gunk off of silicon putty/silicone earplugs?

Question: I want to continue to use my silicone earplugs, but they're becoming increasingly disgusting and laden with little particles. Help!
Comment: Honestly, if they're the soft shapeable putty kind, not solid, you're better off throwing them out and replacing them. They're extremely cheap and have a very limited lifespan. Just toss them.
Answer: If the ear plugs are solid silicone, you can use a tiny bit (a drop or two) of mild dish washing liquid with warm (not hot) water to wash them by hand.
Here's how.

Wash your hands.
Mix the cleaning solution in a clean cup.
Soak the plugs in the liquid for a minute or five.
Work the yuck loose with your fingers gently massaging the plugs to get into every crevice.
Rinse with warm water thoroughly.
Set aside to dry on a clean surface.

Some ear plugs have a small spring-loaded insert that blocks the sound canal if there is an explosive sound. The small mechanism must be removed before the silicone earpiece is washed as above.
Answer: When I had silicone orthotic earplugs made, the technician told me to gently wipe them with 75% rubbing alcohol to clean them. But these earplugs are fully cross-linked rubber, not putty. I'm not sure if there's any problem using alcohol on silicone putty.


Digital servo shaking

Question: i need your advice if someone experienced something similar. I try using digital servo but when i tried to connect it to board by this tutorial https://blogs.oracle.com/hinkmond/entry/connect_robot_servo_to_rpi3
servo motor only shakes for first ten cycles but after that turns normally. I have no idea why is that but in every article i read that controlling digital servo is same as analog with no need to program them after unboxing.
Thanks for any idea
Answer: The tutorial is using software pwm from java code. If the PI is otherwise busy or the jvm pauses for garbage collection, the pwm signals to the servo will be erratic. Which could be causing your problems.
I have to admit to only looking at the first page of the tutorial.... The other problem I encountered which was very confusing was erratic behaviour caused by the servo drawing more powerr than the PI can supply... Yes I was powering my servo from the pi's 5 volt rail.
By far the most likely answer is that java does lots of small garbage collections for a while until it adjusts its settings and settles into a much longer garbage collection cycle causing your program to pause repeatedly.
When java does a garbage collection your code stops, therefore so does the pwm and this would cause the strange behavior your are describing.
For my servos I'm using the adafruit 16 Channel pwm board, it has it's own clock, you talk to it via i2c and it leaves your code free to do other stuff.
You should probably do some reading about java garbage collection, java and real-time processing don't go together so well. As long as you understand that you can only get near to real-time processing out of java, all is good.
Comment: Thanks for answer. I used external power source (+5V) with no effect. What baffles me is that shaking stops after cca minute and after that works great. So my question was about digital/analog servo differences cause it looks like the servo cannot process the signal at first (maybe weak signal for digital processer) and i cannot find reason for it anywhere
Comment: I've edited my original answer

Digital servo shaking


How to write "bei wu long" in Chinese and what is its origin?

Question: Bei Wu Long in Cantonese means to make a big mistake.

What are the Chinese characters for this?
Is there a story for this?
Answer: I'm pretty sure that the " Bei Wu Long" is "摆乌龙". "乌龙" in Cantonese sounds like "own goal" in English. You know own goal is a big mistake, right?
It is a long story. According to this website, is is original from a folk tale in Canton. Once upon a time, there was a drought. People prayed to the "青龙"(Green Dragon) because it can bring rain. However, at last it was the "乌龙"( Black Dragon) who bring disaster that answered to them. The situation became worse.
Then in 1960s, journalist in Hongkong use "乌龙" to describe the "own goal" in soccer game because the "乌龙" sound similar in Cantonese to "own goal".
Comment: Wow! Thanks you! What a great answer. My dad knew it had something to do with a Black Dragon, but didn't know the story. Great answer!
Answer: The Chinese character is : 摆乌龙
<code>It originatesfrom a folk legend in Guangdong China.
</code>
There was a heavy drought in Guangdong, people prayed the Thanh Long to give people rain, but Wu long came instead of Thanh Long , and it brought big disaster to people.
So 摆乌龙 means to make a big mistake.
Comment: This answer is fine but it duplicates an existing answer without additional detail. If other answers are adequate, please consider up-voting them.
Answer: 擺烏龍
baai2 wu1 lung4*2
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38479/
There's no explanation for it (except that it does state "accidentally score against one's own team").


Selenium IDE type not saving text

Question: I am trying to create an automation tool to test a salesforce platform. When I try to create a new form, the text is displayed but it's really just an injection from Javascript. Is there any way to have the text not disappear? Here is what my IDE looks like so far
Comment: Im not getting your question properly. Since you have mentioned about java script, have you tried to use java script executor?
Answer: These are not JavaScripts. These are the locators of the particular element.
The 1st column is the action which is going to be performed. 2nd column is the locator to specify where it has to be done. 3rd column denotes the locators label. Generally when you record a script using IDE this is how it stores the value.
Comment: I agree with everything you've said, but to insert the text into the fields under Value, those are strings injected by javascript into the field. Is that correct? My problem is, those values for type are not saved when submitting the form.
Comment: There is a similar type of question which was asked previously. Please refer the below link for references.                                                                     https://sqa.stackexchange.com/questions/7871/selenium-ide-store-variable-in-javascript-of-page
Comment: While this is definitely helpful for running scripts, it still does not solve my issue of the fields disappearing. I am trying to get the text to trigger the aria-required
Answer: This issue will occurs due to the following reasons.

Verify your firefox browser version and if it is the latest one then downgrade the browser version since selenium IDE has ended their support with firefox browser. From the version 55 selenium IDE will not support firefox.
For references click here.
(https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/seleniumhq.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/firefox-55-and-selenium-ide/amp/)
Selenium IDE has some probelms with 'typekeys' and this will not work.
Verify your page is generating dynamic Id's everytime when the page gets loaded. If random id gets generated then use different locators to send the text values.
In some cases, you may need to use simple"type" command to see the value of the field. Sometimes you need to use "typeKeys'.

Workaround:
Upgrade to Selenium Webdriver instead using IDE.
Please click here for more references.
https://github.com/seleniumhq/selenium-google-code-issue-archive/issues/2898
Comment: The answer is, Lightning has issues that prevent selenium from automation. If it were salesforce classic, it would not have an issue.
Comment: "Lightning has issues that prevent selenium from automation." => If so, then use the Kantu [Selenium IDE](https://a9t9.com/kantu/), which has [XClick](https://a9t9.com/kantu/x#realuser) and XType [Sendkeys](https://a9t9.com/kantu/docs/xtype) - these commands simulate _native OS click and keyboard events_
Answer: On your selenium IDE use the store text command and store it in a variable then call the variable this way ${variableName}
<code>Command       Target           Value
store text    //your_object    storedText
echo          ${storedText}
</code>
Comment: Plz, add the description.

Selenium IDE type not saving text


How to deal with ' or (') in CKeditor

Question: I am unable to use smarty in CKeditor because it's transforming the ' into & #39;
I couldn't find anything useful when click the configure CKEditor Button in display preferences.
Answer: You can turn off html encoding for CKeditor through UI (i.e >= 4.7)
Navigate to Administer >> Customize Data and Screens >> Display preferences
Scroll down until you see Configure CkEditor button. Click on it to view all the settings. Under Advance options add entities option as False(as shown in image) and save the form.

Note: You will need to clear your browser cache to reflect the changes(and CiviCRM caches).
Comment: Thanks Pradeep. Works as expected. If you check the source code when viewing the page, the " should now be literal instead of being converted to a HTML entity ```"```

How to deal with ' or (') in CKeditor


What is the source of the error regarding the origin of the number zero?

Question: What is the source of the historical error that the zero was from the Middle East and not where it is really from, namely India?
Comment: More about "Arabic" numerals from SciShow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar7CNsJUm58
Answer: It was quite likely due to European scholars referring Arabic texts. These texts often drew inspiration from Eastern (esp. Indian and Chinese) works. However, the Arabic authors (for some reasons I am not aware of) did not properly attribute the works and therefore, European mathematicians may have thought of zero's origins as being Arabic.
But, of course, that is not to say that zero had 'Indian' origin. What is currently known is that, oldest text to explicitly refer to zero was Indian. But, its use may well be dated before that in ancient Greece, China and other civilizations.
Comment: All "Arabic" numerals were in fact Hindu/Indian in origin. They were introduced to the Europeans (Byzantines originally) via the Arabs though, who themselves got the digits from the Indians and modified their forms just slightly...
Comment: @check123 : On what basis are you saying "But, its use may well be dated before that in ancient Greece,..." Any references ?
Answer: The Liber Abaci written by Fibonacci was extremely influential in the devlopment of arithmetic and was the main source of the reference to "Arabic" numerals.
Zero is not from India. Zero is from ancient Babylonia. The Indians copied the Babylonian system, as did the Greeks. Zero is widely found in ancient Greek manuscripts written as an omicron with an overstroke. The Arabic symbol for zero, a dot, is completely different.
Comment: Not quite. [The Babylonian "zero" was a placeholder for "no digits in this position"](http://www.und.edu/instruct/lgeller/zeroph.html). Like instead of writing "1034" they would write "1 34" (but in base 60 and with tick marks). Later they introduced a symbol. ***They didn't have the actual number "zero"***. It wasn't used alone, and they did not have the concept of doing math on "nothing". The Greeks copied the idea of a symbol as a placeholder from the Babylonians. The Indians included zero in math in the [Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmasphutasiddhanta).


Print Service legend display null for polygon features

Question:
the print service of application works well, but  after converting the map area to pdf , the legend shows null filled values for polygon features(as in figure for Build up area,Forest dense area). I am using Map service to display those polygon features. but the polygon area that occupied for the category is not filled with relevant color value. I am trying to find a solution for this around two weeks still no luck. I am fed up of this. I use CMV esri javascript api framework to build my web application.
Answer: I came across this issue as well, it's nothing to do with the CMV app, but is an ArcGIS server issue.
The resolution which worked for me is:
Set ArcGIS Server Account's Windows default printer's default page size to a size as large as or larger than the page layout that is being exported. For example, if the map document is a tabloid size (11 x 17), set the default printer's default page size to 11 x 17 or larger. If setting the printer to the exact size of the layout page, check that the orientation (portrait or landscape) also matches the layout to be exported. The easiest solution is typically to install a plotter driver, as these have the largest page sizes available by default. Microsoft Windows ships with many plotter drivers available through the Add Printer wizard. No download is necessary.
From https://support.esri.com/en/technical-article/000011636


US-County level - median income 1930 to 1990

Question: I am looking for median income statistics per county for the time period from 1930 to 1990. I have found these median income statistics from 1960 to 1990 at the US census bureau. However, I seem to be unable to find any earlier calculations at the county level. Do they exist? If so, where?
Comment: I've been meaning to respond to your question and finally remembered to do so. I checked NHGIS.ORG and found that it has county-level data with shape files for 1950, 1980, and 1990. It is not a complete set of data, unfortunately.
Comment: Thank you for the comment and sorry that it went unnoticed (by me) for so long. I am especially interested in the data from 1950 you mention but cannot seem to find it on NHGIS. Could you provide a link?
Answer: I suggest you search IPUMS, which has variables going back to 1850: https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml
I quickly searched and found that at least, personal income has been evaluated going back to 1940: https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/group?id=income
But a more detailed search might be even more fruitful.
Comment: Thank you, I upvote your answer because it may be helpful for others with similar questions. For me, it is not completely satisfactory because this is income at the individual, not at the county-level which complicate things for me. Of course, I could collapse individuals onto the county-level but I would feel much better if I had pre-calculated, "official" statistics on county-level income which I presume must exist somewhere.


Hard limit to have number of Excel webparts on SharePoint 2010 page?

Question: Is there any hard limit to have number of Excel webparts on the SharePoint 2010 page?
Comment: Are you having a specific issue related to this?
Answer: Nothing specific to Excel web parts.  There is a default maximum number of web parts per page configured in your Web.config.  The setting is "WebPartLimits" if you need to modify it.
For example:
<code><WebPartLimits MaxZoneParts="50" PropertySize="1048576" />
</code>
With that said, however, if you run too many Excel web parts on a single page, it will load very slowly.
Answer: Just anecdotally, I have a web part page with 8 Excel web parts on it and it takes about 15 sec for them to all load.  There aren't any hard limits from what I've seen.  It will mostly depend on what your users deem acceptable in terms of loading time and consumption wise.


Is it safe to take a job offer in EU when green card would expire

Question: I have a Green Card in USA and it is scheduled to expire in July this year and have been offered a 6-month contract role in Switzerland. Even though the company would need me to start within the next couple of week, I would probably not be back in USA before the expiration of the Green Card. Is this a problem if my Green Card expires while abroad?
Answer: I would try to renew the card before you leave but if not USCIS has a procedure for renewing while abroad:

How to Renew a Green Card If You Are Outside the United States
If you are outside the United States and your green card will expire within 6 months (but you will return within 1 year of your departure from the United States and before the card expires), you should file for your renewal card as soon as you return to the United States.
If you are outside of the United States when the card expires and you have not applied for the renewal card prior to your departure, you should contact the nearest U.S. Consulate, USCIS office, or U.S. port of entry before attempting to file Form I-90 for a renewal green card.
Answer: Generally the expiration date on the plastic has no bearing on your legal status (unless you have a "conditional" green card). You can use an expired card to enter the US, as long as your status is valid. See page 36 here.

LPRs with expired I-551s may be boarded without penalty provided the
  card was issued with a 10-year expiration date. A passport is not
  required

That said, you may want to apply for renewal before you go, or apply for REP. It is required if you stay out of the country for a year or more, but probably won't hurt you even if you stay less.


A multiple choice question for complex matrix

Question: Let $A$ be an $n \times n$ matrix with complex entries. Pick out the true
statements.

$A$ is always similar to an upper-triangular matrix.
$A$ is always similar to a diagonal matrix.
$A$ is similar to a block diagonal matrix, with each diagonal block of size strictly less than $n$, provided $A$ has at least $2$ distinct eigenvalues.

I have solved $1$ & $2$. $1$ is true and $2$ is false.
But I cannot find how to solve $3$. Can somebody help?
Answer: This is true and the a way to see this is to consider the Jordan normal form .


PostgreSQL 9.2.4 (Windows 7) - Service won't start, "could not load pg_hba.conf"

Question: I am trying to get Postgres 9.2.4 to run as a service on Windows 7. After installing postgres, the service was running fine. However, after setting postgres up as a server for another program, the service stopped running. When I try to start the service now, I get a message saying :

"The postgresql-x64-9.2 - PostgreSQL Server 9.2 service on Local
  Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if
  they are not in use by other services or programs."

When I try running the program that should use the database server, I get this error :

"A problem was encountered while attempting to log into or create the
  production database. Details: Could not connect to the server; Could
  not connect to remote socket. The application must now close"

I have also encountered this error once while opening the same program :

"A problem was encountered while attempting to log into or create the
  production database. Details: FATAL: could not load pg_hba.conf The
  application must now close."

I have tried running the service logged on as a local system account as well as my own account (In the postgres service properties) to no avail. I also tried restarting my computer. After a lot of troubleshooting online, I learned that a good thing to check is the pg_log file. Here are the contents of the latest pg_log entry :
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  database system was interrupted; last known up at 2013-05-29 14:58:01 MDT
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  database system was not properly shut down; automatic recovery in progress
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  record with zero length at 0/175BB98
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  redo is not required
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2013-05-29 14:59:45 MDT LOG:  autovacuum launcher started
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT LOG:  local connections are not supported by this build
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT CONTEXT:  line 1 of configuration file "C:/PostgreSQL/data/pg_hba.conf"
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT FATAL:  could not load pg_hba.conf
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT LOG:  local connections are not supported by this build
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT CONTEXT:  line 1 of configuration file "C:/PostgreSQL/data/pg_hba.conf"
2013-05-29 15:07:00 MDT FATAL:  could not load pg_hba.conf
2013-05-29 15:09:03 MDT LOG:  received fast shutdown request
2013-05-29 15:09:03 MDT LOG:  aborting any active transactions
2013-05-29 15:09:03 MDT LOG:  autovacuum launcher shutting down
2013-05-29 15:09:03 MDT LOG:  shutting down
2013-05-29 15:09:03 MDT LOG:  database system is shut down

It seems to be having issues with the pg_hba.conf file, which looks like this :
local all all trust
host all all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 trust
host all all 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 trust

As per many suggestions online, I tried editing the top line to a number of different alternatives (host all all trust / host all 127.0.0.1/32 trust / host all 192.168.0.100/24 trust , etc.). This made sense to me, as the log file was saying that local connections are unsupported by postgres and was also pointing to that line. However, none of my changes had any effect. I tried restarting my computer after every change but nothing made any difference.
When I searched for examples of what a pg_hba.conf file normally looks like, the examples looked slightly different from my file. I noticed that in the PostgreSQL program file, in addition to pg_hba.conf, there was also a "20130529-150444-old-pg_hba.conf" file which looked a lot more like the examples I was finding online. This file has several lines of comments before these last few lines :
# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD

# IPv4 local connections:
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 md5
# Allow replication connections from localhost, by a user with the
# replication privilege.
#host    replication     postgres        127.0.0.1/32            md5
#host    replication     postgres        ::1/128                 md5

I was hoping that this was the original pg_hba.conf file and that if I replaced the new file with the contents of the old one, postgres would start working again. No such luck. I have been hoping for more error files to be logged in pg_log to see if the previously stated error had disappeared or changed to something else, but no more files have been logged.
I have been troubleshooting online for a few days now and nothing I've found has worked. Sorry for having such a long question, but I wanted to be thorough and include all relevant information. I would appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this problem or offer suggestions.
Answer:
Have you run initdb before?
If you haven't, that will cause the problem.  Once you run the initdb command, you will see a data directory, which should contain a default pg_hba.conf.
Then you need to replace the default pg_hba.conf with your customized pg_hba.conf.
You need to set the $PGDATA. In CentOS, it is located at /etc/sysconfig/pgsql/postgresql.

PostgreSQL 9.2.4 (Windows 7) - Service won't start, “could not load pg_hba.conf”


What do you do with Kos Shel Eliyahu

Question: The Minhag is to fill up an additional cup towards the end of the seder known as Kos Shel Eliyahu. I was just wondering what the various minhagim are as to what to do with it after the seder is over.
Comment: Well, a correct answer can list and source many _minhagim_.
Comment: Should probably be Community Wiki, since there won't be any one "right" answer.
Comment: Similar: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/81171
Comment: All I know is that growing up I used to think that Eliyahu had stopped by when I saw the cup empty when I came down in the morning.
Answer: The Chabad minhag is to pour it back into the bottle after לשנה הבאה בירושלים. While this is being done, everyone at the table sings א-לי אתה ואודך to the tune composed by R' Shneur Zalman of Liadi.
Comment: Sefer Haminhagim just mentions these two things without drawing any connection between them. However, in one of his talks (http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=15991&pgnum=400 and following pages), the Rebbe zt"l develops the idea that the Cup of Eliyahu represents a level of G-dliness "beyond all measurements and limitations of the Order of Hishtalshelus"; pouring this into the bottle signifies drawing this down into "vessels" that we can apprehend; and that in this way אתה - the unknowable Thou of Hashem - becomes א-לי, the One with whom I have a personal relationship.
Comment: Does singing _keli ata_ have anything to do with the pouring, or is it just that they both happen to be done at the same time, after the _seder_?
Answer: My father always used it the next day for Kiddush, and that is what I do.
Comment: No he pours it back into the bottle and uses that bottle the next day.
Comment: As does my family.
Comment: Gershon Gold, @yydl, do you leave it the cup overnight? Ifso, do you cover the cup with a plate or similar (because of _mashkim m'gulin_ (or dust))?
Comment: @msh210 Oops. Looks like I should get my facts straight before posting. We *do* cover it (but leave it in the cup).
Answer: IIRC my father pours it back into the bottle (without first depugmifying it).
Answer: My great-grandfather's practice was to pour wine from the Kos shel Eliyahu into each person's fourth cup.  (My grandmother used  a spoon.)
I don't have a source or even a reason for the practice, but when I asked around I was told that it was an affirmation of early Religious Zionism, since Eliyahu's cup represents the fifth expression of redemption, "v'heveti," G-d's bringing us to the land of Israel.  To show that this redemption has started again, everyone drinks from the wine.
Answer: Nechama Leibowitz' Haggada mentions that after establishment of the State of Israel Rabbi Kasher tried to convince the Rabbinate to add the fifth cup at the Seder.
Comment: I don't see how this answers the question, which was what to do with the _kos shel Eliyahu_. Or did you mean that, if we drank a fifth cup, it would supplant the _kos shel Eliyahu_?
Comment: Teiomonim have a fifth cup even before the state of israel was established.
Comment: http://hebrewbooks.org/2408
Answer: Eliezer Brodt has a post on the Seforim blog where he analyzes the development of this custom in great depth: The Cup for the Visitor: What lies behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu?
His conclusion:

"There are definitely early sources that talk about a fifth cup of wine at the seder. According to some, this fifth cup at some point started being called Kos Shel Eliyahu. Starting from the late 1400s we find that people would pour a special kos, and call it Kos Shel Eliyahu.  I have shown that there are early sources for opening the door at Shefoch Chamascha that give various reasons. I also showed that there are many drawings by Shefoch Chamascha of a man on a donkey and Eliyahu found in the early manuscripts and printed illustrated Haggadahs. This would logically lead us to conclude that there was a belief that he did indeed come to visit when the door is opened."

In terms of what to do with the cup after the seder, some of the sources he brings include: R. Hayyim Benveniste (1603-1673), who writes that Ashkenazim empty their cups at the end into a fifth cup that they call Elijah's Cup, and he adopted this custom and drank it; and Rabbi Moshe Hagiz (1671-1751) who writes that after the seder the head of the household sleeps next to the full cup.
Answer: הגדה של פסח עם פסקי הלכה ומנהגים ממרן עמוד ההוראה הגאון רבי שלמה זלמן אויערבאך  זצוק״ל, by ישראל יוסף ברונשטיין, published 5764, page 218, cites from ויגד משה 30:5, in the name of קונטרס מנהגי החת״ם סופר, that since the cup was used for one מצוה it should be used for another, so some leave it covered until the morning and make קִדוש on it then. It further cites ויגד משה 30:5 as saying that some pour from the cup into the various cups of the people at the סדר after "שפוך חמתך", but adds that that would only be for those who fill the fourth cup after saying "שפוך חמתך", which, it says, is not the prevalent custom.

What do you do with Kos Shel Eliyahu


Is yoga an acceptable form of meditation for a practicing Buddhist?

Question: Yoga is a form of mediation which involves physical exertions as well as inward examination.  Is this an acceptable form of meditation for a Buddhist?  Are there any sects of Buddhism which focus on meditations which involve physical exertion?
Comment: For a buddhist, sure... for the sangha, not so sure. Practicing vipassana is still important.
Answer: It depends on what your definition of 'acceptable' is.  Will it benefit you?  Absolutely.  For one, a case can be made that yoga is a mindfulness-of-the-body meditation and that it can even go beyond that - incorporating other aspects of sati (mindfulness).  I think it's also safe to say that all five of the hindrances can be temporarily suppressed during intense yoga and may even give rise to access concentration (upacarasamadhi).
Still, I don't think it's a perfect substitute for the kind of meditation the Buddha taught.  For starters, I wonder whether true jhana is available to someone in an asana other than a variant of the lotus position.  You'll be able to attain some amount of samatha, but the degree will be lessened by the effort it takes to maintain the other asanas.  Outside of lotus, I also don't think you'd be very stable, physically speaking, and that you'd probably just wind up falling over!  But maybe you aren't even looking to attain jhana.  Who knows!  There is precedent that such states aren't a prerequisite to enlightenment.
As per 'sects' of Buddhism that use physical excursion, well, there is a rich tradition of doing prostrations, schools like Tendai have their mudras (but I'm guessing that's not the kind of exertion you're talking about), and many martial arts schools with a Zen slant pay strict attention to bodily position - especially Japanese styles like iaido (and come on - meditate with a sword?  How cool is that!).
So yes - beneficial, absolutely.  A true alternative?  Mmmm...probably not.
Answer: Asanas are generally acceptable if you leave the ideological side of it and when you do the Asana be aware of the posture and sensation in the body. For timing purposes use the breath and heartbeat. This can be a good physical exercise also converting this to Kayanupassana and Vedananupassana in the 4 Satipatthana.
If you leave out the ideological part behind Pranayama then both are compatible. The distinction between the two are:

Buddhism: do not regulate the breath but watch the process initially but later slow the process
Pranayama: regulate the process

Some buddhist tradition sometimes do advice to regulate the breath to overcome being scatterbrained when meditating, being lethargic, and to induce pleasantness / joy. Also there is a view that Pranayama could have been originating or evolution from a Buddhist teaching. (See: Can Pranayama Be Derived from Anapana?)
Also when doing Breath Meditation some traditions mention certain prominent places to rest your attention. If you go by the Suttas only it say to rest the attention in front or around the mouth as some traditions interpret. (See Parimukhaṁ). This can be analogous to Chakras in Yoga. (See: Are the Chakras present in the original Buddha's teachings?).
Whatever you do start with at then end you have to see things as they are. For this you have to reduce the of the breath and develop strong awareness. If you are in regulating the process you lose the chance of being objectively observing and being aware. The awareness you develop would be shallow. This might be a hindrance later on. But if this is not the only techniques you use then it can become a tool. In addition you are creating new fabrication / conditioned existence where the objective was to get out of it. Having said that the path leading to the final goal is actually fabricated / conditioned. Sometimes good conditioning can help.
Having said all this do not give too much prominence of time to Yoga though it can be used for benefit as time is limited but use this as a tool in certain situation like to overcome lethargy, develop energy, overcome pain, etc.
For an alternate discussion see: Yoga: as seen in the light of Vipassana and A Re-appraisal of Patanjali's Yoga-Sutras in the Light of the Buddha's Teaching
Answer: Are you asking whether or not Buddhists can practice Hatha Yoga (i.e. practicing the physical postures) or the yogic meditative practices? I don't see any real problem with Hatha Yoga, but yogic meditation is based on a different set of teachings and is part of a different interpretive framework than Buddhism.
Buddhism rejects the idea of any self that exists other than as a convention and teaches that all of reality arises from causes and conditions without any underlying ground of reality.. Raja Yoga (the proper name for Yoga as a meditative system) is based very much on the exact opposites of these, teaching the existence of a supreme cosmic principle underlying all things called Brahman, and furthermore most teach that this divine Brahman is the true self, or Atman.
The actual meditation methods used in Raja Yoga are effective means of attaining concentration, but the purpose of attaining such concentration is quite different in Buddhism. In Buddhism, concentration is used to clear and prepare the mind for the realization that reality is impermanent, unsatisfying, and non-self, which leads to the attainment of enlightenment, and so concentration is combined with other methods which aim at this goal. In contrast, Raja yoga identifies the attainment of high levels of concentration (i.e. the Jhanas) with the realization of the Atman as being Brahman.
From a Buddhist perspective, such an interpretation is wrong view, and especially coupled with the fact that Raja Yoga doesn't have practices leading to the realization of the three characteristics, Raja Yoga isn't a system of practice which one should expect to lead one to Nibbana.
Comment: The question was about the kinds of yoga involving physical exertion, not Patanjali yoga.
Comment: Ok then. The physical exercises are fine.


Switch view of a custom list

Question: How can we switch views of the list which is created on visual studio?
SharePoint designer solution or code solution?
Answer: If you have created a List Definition from visual studio you can open the Schema.xml and modify the views, this Msdn documentation shows you how: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms459356(v=office.14).aspx
It is also possible modify views directly in the GUI :  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-foundation-help/create-modify-or-delete-a-view-HA010377693.aspx
If you are talking about showing a control for changing views in the GUI you should get that control OOTB when you add a list view web part, otherwise look in to the list view selector control: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.webcontrols.listviewselector.aspx

Switch view of a custom list


Xcode menu item Editor / Add Model Version... missing

Question: Every once in a while I try to add a new data model version, and the menu item is missing.  It seems the Editor menu is supposed to change depending on the file selected, and this sometimes doesn't happen.  It the past I've randomly clicked, cleaned, built, etc. and eventually it showed up again with me not knowing what happened.  Today it seems restarting Xcode fixed it, but I don't know if that will always work.  Below are two screen shots, the first showing the wrong menu, and the second showing the correct menu.  My data model is selected in both cases.  Has anyone else seen this?  Is it a bug, or is there some setting or selection I'm missing?
Answer: From the color of that file navigator bar I can see that you did not select the datamodel file. You probably were in "Assistant Editor"-Mode and had a .h or .m file on the right side. The active cursor was in the right file too.
The selected file shows a darker shade of gray:

The not selected file uses a lighter shade of gray:

It's important to know that the file selection highlight in the left side bar does not change when you select a different file without using the side bar. Don't trust the sidebar when you are editing files.
Click into the data model file first and your menu will be like you expect it.
Comment: Wow, good eye!  I just played around with it and you're exactly right.  It does seem like the sidebar should actually select the file  (it does when the Assistant Editor isn't visible, even if no file is "active").  Thank you!
Comment: Ugh cant believe 7 years later this is still a thing. So not obvious why you couldn't do anything. Thanks for the help!
Answer: Unless your are selecting the menu super fast after selecting the file (possibly not giving Xcode time to swap it out) then I say file a bug report http://bugreporter.apple.com
You should give Xcode a few moments to swap the menu out though to determine what kind of bug it is, if it doesn't swap out after 60 seconds or so then it likely isn't just a performance issue). Make sure to include a system profile as I just checked on my and every time I switched to a data model it changed the menu accordingly.
Does the same thing ever happen with xib files? Any other file types you use that sometimes have different menus?


Make [global-warming] a synonym of [climate-change]

Question: climate-change global-warming
I'm not sure we need two different tags. Most everyone uses the verbiage climate change and not global warming nowadays (at least in politics). I'm not sure there's a good case for having separate tags for political discussion purposes.
Answer: Yes, but: The lemma on Wikipedia is Global warming:

Global warming is the long-term rise in the average temperature of the
  Earth's climate system. It is a major aspect of climate change and has
  been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements and by
  measurements of various effects of the warming. Global warming and
  climate change are often used interchangeably. But, more
  accurately, global warming is the mainly human-caused increase in
  global surface temperatures and its projected continuation, while
  climate change includes both global warming and its effects, such as
  changes in precipitation.

I consider climate change an euphemism.
So it should be the other way: Make climate change a synonym of global warming.
But the consensus on SE seems to be that climate change should be the lemma:  Earth Science, Skeptics and Worldbuilding do this. Sustainable Living has both.
Comment: I would post this as a new question. My goal was a synonym, which is now done. We don't need two tags either way
Answer: This question was asked more than two years ago, but I was just about to ask the exact same question when the "similar questions" box showed me this just before posting.
I think in politics and everyday discussion the two terms are synonyms. It only makes sense to distinguish between the two from a scientific viewpoint. At the moment we have 50 questions tagged with climate-change and 14 questions tagged with global-warming (5 questions have both tags), so I feel that global-warming should be merged into climate-change.
I can see here that someone already proposed climate-change as a synonym for global-warming, so exactly the other way around. This proposal doesn't seem to have any upvotes yet. I would downvote it and propose a synonym on climate-change, but I can't due to lack of reputation on the tags.
Answer: Done. All questions tagged "global warming" should now be tagged "climate change".
Answer: Climate change =/= global warming.

Global warming refers only to the Earth's rising surface temperature, while climate change includes warming and the "side effects" of warming—like melting glaciers, heavier rainstorms, or more frequent drought. Said another way, global warming is one symptom of the much larger problem of human-caused climate change.
Comment: While this can be scientifically true, this make no difference specific to Politics (and Politics.StackExchange). If we keep two separate tags, an arbitrary Q will either have both tags or none.
Comment: What are you proposing with this answer? That we keep both tags? Or that we should merge [tag:climate-change] in to [tag:global-warming] (rather than the reverse)?


Should the Electronics and Avionics tags be combined?

Question: Not sure what the distinction would be. Avionics are nothing more than electronics used in air and spacecraft, so given this is a space site the two tags seem a distinction without a difference.
Answer: While I agree that avionics are electronics, I can see how we could use both as separate tags. Questions tagged as avionics might ask more about their function, while those tagged as electronics about their operation. For example, if I had a question about SEU (single event upset), it might not necessarily be about avionics alone. And if I ask about CAS (collision avoidance systems) the question probably wouldn't be so much about electronics as it would be about their specific function.
But that's just my opinion, so let's rather see what questions we now have that support this assertion; First the questions tagged as avionics that aren't also tagged with electronics:

How large are the Curiosity rover's FPGAs which enable "dream mode"?
What does 'triple redundant closed-loop digital avionics system' mean?
Overheating problem in a nano-satellite due to proximity of system components
Advances in AI and Avionics needed for deep space exploration?
What entails "Avionics" on the Antares Rocket?

Quite many of these could also use electronics, but crucially, not all of them. OK, it's still not clear. How about questions tagged as electronics that supposedly aren't about avionics:

Strategies for combating ESD and ground plane potential shifts on spacecraft charging?
Where does electrical power on a rocket come from?
Space computing, general question
How does Rosetta "wake-up?"
Resilience to data transmission errors of the Juno spacecraft
Does Juno use MPPT?
Are custom semiconductors used on board spacecraft/robots?
What are the chances of getting struck by lightning while in Earth orbit?
What shielding would be required to use commercial components in lunar exploration?

OK, this set is a bit clearer, as expected. Some could still also use avionics, but again not all, not even most.
Having in mind that tags in structure don't necessarily have to follow their academic lineage, and that they mainly serve the purpose of organizing contents and making them easier to find, it seems there's two options:

Create avionics a tag synonym of electronics, with latter being master of the former, or
Leave as is and let question authors decide if they want to use one, the other, or both

Since we only have 10 questions tagged as electronics and 6 questions tagged as avionics (and only one using both tags, yours posted a few minutes ago), I'm inclined to let them live independent lives for a bit longer and we see what makes sense later, as it becomes more apparent. Plus, that means I (or any other mod) don't have to do anything, which is also nice. How does that sound?
Comment: Tough to complain with that logic. While I would say all of the electronics articles avionics would work as well I am compelled by the argument that the purpose of tags is to be useful people searching and OPs. If people are using both with little overlap then perhaps both add value.
Answer: "Avionics" are electronics systems that have mostly to do with the control of an aircraft, especially the HMI (human-machine interface), but the terminology doesn't usually extend to the context of a satellite or space probe, though you could include some of the TTC&C (Telemetry, Tracking & Command, Communication) Systems as well as the (ACS) Attitude Control System as having an avionics function.
However the "Electronics" tag would definitely include items like the electrical power system, attitude measurement sensors, payload instrumentation and control, eg transponders in a telecoms sat or instrumentation electronics eg cameras and scientific instruments in Landsat or New Horizons, TTC&C subsystems, and antennas.
Certainly there is no mention or explanation of the term "avionics" in any of the references that I've referred to below, and have at hand. Reference 4 includes the term "AIMS" = Avionics Integrated Modular System in a list appendix, but doesn't use the term anywhere in the book.
So I would say, in summary, that the term "electronics" is all-inclusive, whereas, "avionics" doesn't apply to spaceborne systems.
References

Satellite Communications, Dennis Roddy, 4ed., McGraw-Hill, 2006
Satellite Technology and its Applications, PRK Chetty, 2ed., TAB Books/McGraw-Hill, 1991
Principles of Space Instrument Design, AM Cruise, JA Bowles, TJ Patrick, CV Goodall, Cambridge Uni Press, 1998
Air and Spaceborne Radar Systems: An Introduction, Philippe Lacomme, Jean-Philippe Hardange, Jean-Claude Marchais, Eric Normant, translated from the French, William Andrew Publishing, 2001


Can Naegleria fowleri enter through the eyes ( example rinsing/splashing eyes with water)

Question: I understand that it primarily enters the body through the nose by by "feeding on the olfactory neurons in the nose" as answered here in a different question. Would the nerve cells in the eyes present a similar entryway?
Comment: @Gabriel could you perhaps opine on this?
Answer: In a 1987 article "Nonenteric Infections Acquired through Contact with Water", the author mentioned that "Infection of the ears, throat, respiratory tract, and cornea are also encountered" by virulent strains of Acanthamoeba and Naegleria fowleri. The only reference that implicates Naegleria fowleri is this one, but it doesn't mention modes of infection.
The long and the short of it is that Acanthamoeba infections can be acquired through contact with the cornea, but it's not clear whether Naegleria infections can also be acquired in this way.
n.b. The first link takes you to the JSTOR page.  In the event you do not have access, here is the PubMed page.
Comment: @Jarnal: I edited the post to answer your comment-question, but I am aware that this doesn't answer the original question. I cannot provide that answer; I only delved into the article posted by ohcanada.
Comment: Is the extract you quoted specific to Naegleria fowleri or just water borne pathogens in general? Thanks for your input.
Comment: @dd3, thanks, your input provided helpful clarification.