Is it safe to plug a power strip into a travel adapter plug?

Question: I'm traveling from North America to Asia next month, I'm wondering if it is safe to hook up a power strip (with a surge protector) into a travel adapter plug, instead of buying several travel adapter plugs.
Comment: Be careful! Do not use a 110v surge protector on 230v since it will consider the 230v a surge!
Comment: Noite that *many* devices don't need voltage conversion.  Laptop power supplies, phone chargers etc. are usually universal these days.  When I've gone fropm 230V to 110V countries I've never needed to take a transformer, by careful selection of which chargers I take. Hairdryers etc. are highly unlikely to be universal, and would require a big heavy transformer.  *Check the devices you're planning to take*.
Comment: I made a few friends during conferences by showing up with a modified power strip; I had cut off the Euro plug of the strip and put on a US one.
Comment: I do this all this the time; then I only have to take one adapter :) I've done it from Australia to Europe, Asia, US and Africa. I haven't done it from US back the other way, though (ie the direction you're going) but I suspect it won't be a problem with most devices being dual voltage nowadays.
Comment: You are most likely travelling from a 110v zone to a 220v zone. That means your travel adapter would do some voltage conversion. How much load you can put on it depends on the wattage of the device. The wattage should be on the adapter. For example [this](http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Star-SF500-Automatic-Transformer/dp/B001TPZ294) adapter can take upto 500W
Answer: There are two types of travel adapter plugs commonly used:

Plug adapters. These just convert the physical plug into one of a different shape, but do not perform any voltage conversion. It is perfectly fine and common to use one with a power strip (with surge protector). As Aganju points out, you should be careful not to overload any circuits, as a power strip allows you to plug multiple devices into a single outlet. Also, be sure to check that the surge protector is rated to handle the voltage for your destination's electrical system. Some models are universal, but others may be 110V only and shouldn't be used in 220-240V electrical systems; check the markings on the device first.

Voltage converters/transformers. These are somewhat heavy transformers, much larger than a plug adapter, that increase or decrease the voltage of the power to allow it to be used with devices expecting a different voltage than the one locally available. Since many common electronic items carried by travelers are "dual-voltage" or "universal voltage" (they are marked as accepting a wide range of voltages, such as 100-240V), these aren't as common anymore and may be unnecessary, but are useful if you must travel with a non-universal device. They often include a plug adapter as part of their design.
Transformers are marked with a maximum wattage that they are capable of handling. Many transformers, especially smaller and cheaper ones, may only handle a load of up to a few hundred watts. It is easy to exceed this limit either with a single high-power device (such as a hair dryer), or a number of lower-power devices. A power strip makes it much easier to overload the transformer.
EDIT: Here's a report from someone describing how using a surge protector on the 110V side of a step-down transformer damaged the surge protector and created a safety hazard. Some of this depends on the type of transformer involved, but it's a good way to try to destroy your surge protector if nothing else. In short: I wouldn't use a surge protector on the other side of a transformer. A power strip that you are sure has no surge protection wouldn't have this problem, though just avoiding such setups all together is probably safest.

Personally, I haven't traveled with a voltage converter (carrying just plug adapters) in years, as I've arranged all the electrical devices I take with me to be universal voltage. Converters are heavy and bulky and I prefer to avoid them. Laptops, cell phone chargers, tablets, cameras, etc... are typically universal, though it's important to check your devices. Some travelers may carry a hairdryer or curling iron, which might not be universal voltage. It is possible to buy special travel models (e.g. from Magellan's in the US, or a travel supply vendor wherever you are) instead, especially as you'd otherwise need a high-wattage transformer to handle a hairdryer. Or obtain such items in your destination if necessary.
Comment: @Ibrahim Thanks! Just to make sure you see it, I am downgrading the idea of using a surge protector on the other side of a transformer from "probably not a good idea" to "actually a pretty bad idea."
Comment: Very thorough and detailed answer, thank you very much!
Comment: Do note that there is a difference between a "surge protector" and a "power strip".  A power strip is just a string of electrical sockets with (maybe) a circuit breaker.  It shouldn't have any problems.  A surge protector has electronic components to shunt overvoltages to ground.  If the transformer you plug it into produces a voltage even slightly higher than the normal range the SP was designed to accept, you will, at best, slowly burn it out.  When travelling between voltage standards, I recommend taking a pocket multimeter to verify all points in your conversion chain.  They're cheap.
Answer: yes and no.
The adapter does not add any risk or danger, so the answer would be: Yes it is safe.
However, and this applies at home the same, the total power you are pulling through all the plugs in the power strip must not be over the total supported limit, otherwise you will either trip the circuit, or start a fire. Depending on your target country, electrical systems are not always built to handle large power drains, and the circuit tripper might be not working or non-existent. Then it might not be save.
If you use only the usual travel stuff, like cell phone and camera battery chargers and laptop power supplies and such, you probably don't need to worry. I would not recommend using a hair dryer or space heater through that, though.
Comment: As I mentioned in my reply to Nivas, modern electronics rarely need transformers as they run on a wide voltage range. Look at your chargers, it is usually noted right on the device what the voltage range is, most made in the past 8 to 10 years support 100-240 VAC 50/60Hz.
Comment: I don't plan to bring a hair dryer, but now I feel more confident, thank you! Although now I'm getting contradicting answers, you and Tom are saying that it is safe, although Nivas is proposing to bring a step up convertor. Do I need a convertor?
Comment: Oh ok, that answers my question, thank you very much!
Answer: Yes it is safe, a travel adapter is simply a plug and socket built into one piece.  Any current the power strip can handle up to circuit breaker tripping can be handled by the adapter.
But you will find in some parts of Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Vietnam) that sockets take both US style flat blade plugs as well as the European round pins. Japan uses the US style flat blade exclusively, as does Taiwan.  So an adapter may not be needed everywhere.
Comment: @CMaster - The UL (Underwriters Laboratory which sets standards and certification for electronics in the USA) has a 250VAC, 20 amp standard for power strips, so the voltage difference is not an issue (unless you find some really cheap import that hasn't been UL rated).
Comment: @Nivas - The OP is asking about connections, not voltages.  Most modern electronics (cameras, phone, tablets, etc) run on wide voltage range from 100 to 220V so a converter is not required very often.
Comment: This is true only if the voltage in the destination country is 110v/120v (Us/Canada). If travelling to China/India for instance, the destination voltage would be 220v and he would need a step up converter (like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Star-SF500-Automatic-Transformer/dp/B001TPZ294)). Step up converters have a max wattage specification and there is a possibility of the converter getting damaged if the wattage is exceeded.
Comment: Presumably most US strips are only rated to 120V or so though, so there's some arc risk when putting 230V through them.
Comment: Well that certainly makes things easier


Soapy off-flavour source?

Question: I have made 3 batches of beer now which each had the same off flavour but I don't really have a clear idea of the source of the problem. It's a kind of soapy cleaning flavour but doesn't match up any flavour descriptor that I've come across. It persists across split batches so is not down to fermentation problems as far as I know but seems to be inherent in the beer. I did think it was something to do with the bottling bucket but I've made and bottled unaffected beer in between the off flavoured ones. It's a long shot but does that sound familiar to anyone?
Answer: This may help:  From John Palmer's How to Brew:

Soapy flavors can caused by not washing your glass very well, but they can also be produced by the fermentation conditions. If you leave the beer in the primary fermentor for a relatively long period of time after primary fermentation is over ("long" depends on the style and other fermentation factors), soapy flavors can result from the breakdown of fatty acids in the trub. Soap is, by definition, the salt of a fatty acid; so you are literally tasting soap.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html
I found this while reading Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff:

If your water is highly alkaline, the beer pH may be too high, causing the beer to taste dull, soapy, or excessively bitter.

(emphasis mine)
Have you checked your local water report?
Comment: Just want to point out that a lot of brewing experts are changing their opinion on long primary fermentations. Not sure if Palmer has adjusted his stance on this or not, but a lot of people are leaving beer on the primary for multiple weeks now, resulting in BETTER beer. A lot of new brewing instructions are still using the old mantra of "1-2-3 weeks," which isn't necessary.
Comment: Another suggestion for the OP: Take your beer to your local homebrew shop and have them taste it.  It may be that what you're perceiving as soapy is something else entirely, and they may be able to help you pinpoint the problem.
Comment: Good point, Graham, and I agree. I routinely leave beers in primary for 3-4 weeks. The question remains: Where are these soapy off-flavors coming from?  I quote Palmer only because this is the only source I have for this off flavor.
Comment: A pH test isn't too unreasonable either, especially if you are at all into the idea of meads and/or wines.
Comment: Cold crashing before the final transfer may help reduce this. FYI, it takes a while for proteins to break down into fatty acids. If your primary was < 3 weeks this probably is not the problem. I generally allow for 7-9 days in primary. Enough time to hit FG and a couple days to allow diacytl reduction. However I've gone as long as a month in primary with no off flavors.
Answer: How long do you leave your beer in primary?  It's possible that you are leaving it too long on the trub, which can cause soapy flavors due to breakdown of fatty acids in the trub.
My other guess is that it has something to do with your sanitizer and not cleaning your equipment properly.
Comment: I'm only leaving it for two weeks - I think your second point is probably correct though I'm not doing much different between batches. I will try and be more vigilant in the future.
Answer: When brewing extract, I'd sometimes found that the extract in contact with the tin sometimes tasted soapy. The taste left a very long lasting back of the tongue bitterness, a bit like eating soap bubbles in the bath (surely everyone has done this as a kid?)
I used to use boiling water to loosen the extract from the inner side and completely empty the tin, but stopped doing that after noticing the off flavour, which did make it though the final beer.
Answer: It could be the hops. Were they all IPAs?
I have heard people say that long dry hopping can cause soapy flavors. This happened to a home brewer I know on his first IPA. He said it tasted soapy. He let it sit in the fridge for a few weeks and it was gone.
I found a guy here at work thinks the Founders Centennial IPA that we are all drinking tastes like "detergent". I don't think that is an off flavor. It's the flavor of the hops at copious quantities. It's a strong flavor.  I think "hops" and he things "detergent".
Answer: I've come across soapy flavors on a handful of occasions, and I've yet to figure out where exactly they come from.
My sources indicate that soapy flavors can come from either various salts, or various esters and organic acids.  This leads me to believe that water and fermentation conditions and/or yeast strain/health all can lead to conditions which result in this flavor in one way or another.
Salts:
Magnesium/calcium/potassium chloride,
Sodium sulfate/carbonate
Esters:  Ethyl dodecanoate, ethyl tridecanoate
Acids:  Capric acid, dodecanoic acid, pyroglutamic acid
Answer: My last malt extract batch of red ale has very similar "soapy" off flavor.  The beer is still very drinkable and I do enjoy it but that bitter/soapy after taste is there. I at first just thought it was a hoppy taste but this is not a hoppy beer so that may not be the case.  I feel confident that it is not a real "soap" taste. I use one-step for a cleanser and star san for my sanitizer and don't rinse either but all the research I have done on this tells me it shouldn't produce any off flavors.  I said all of that to say this... I used tap water with no additives and our tap water has a very high chlorine taste out of the faucet, so my batch that is fermenting now I used a brita charcoal filter on the tap to try to eliminate that. If chlorine isn't the culprit, I really think it is the yeast.  I'd appreciate any other opinions as well.  Cheers!

Soapy off-flavour source?


Mac mail does not work after 10.8.5 update

Question: After installing Mountain Lion 10.8.5 update, mail does not associate to an email account and will not quit (Quit is grayed out - must force quit).  However, the email account is set up in preferences.  Library/mail/V2/maildata/accounts.plist lists the account and the Mailboxes are still present under Library/mail/V2/Mailboxes.  However, if I log out as iMac user and log in as another user, Mail works OK for a different email account associated to that user.  Does 10.8.5 limit the number of accounts for emails?  In Console, I get a MailIAPlugin message: "Tried to get settings for nonexistent account".  Any idea on how to get Mail to work?
Comment: This answer from the Apple discussion board worked for me: https://discussions.apple.com/message/20989931#20989931
Answer: Grayed out Quit in Mail usually indicates that mail is busy doing something (like sync) and does not allow quitting.
Here are few steps you can do:
1- Run the Connection doctor
2- Enable the Activity window to see what is going on (get mail)
3- Delete that account and recreate it. (no worry, your email should be on the original server (ie gmail), but better check that before.
4- Wait for it to complete its duty. (like updating 10000 emails)


Plugins Page invisible / white

Question: I found a lot of posts about the white-screen-of-death, but as far as I can tell, that's not my problem. Whenever I open the backend, everything is fine until I enter the plugins section. The secondary Navigation and the content on the rigth are completely blank, however if I move the mouse over it, or if I just select everything it becomes visible again.
The problem only occurs from within firefox. I already deleted all local files (cache etc.) and I checked the plugins.php for changes. But oddly enough I was not able to find any local explanation.
Is there any known bug that could cause these blank parts?
Answer: The Bug
…is well known, but it's not a bug. It's an Error, that you don't display.
The Fix
Move into your ~/wp-config.php file. Then add
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

and read your Error message.

Plugins Page invisible / white


Using Impala to query salted Hbase rowkey

Question: I would like to use Hbase to store network events, the rowkey will be the timestamp of the event. This will create hotspotting in Hbase, to avoid this i am going to add a salt prefix to the rowkey. This will distribute the rows evenly across all the regions.
so far no problem.
But i also want to use Cloudera Impala to query this data with SQL. Is it possible to use Impala with salted rowkeys? or do i need  * sql queries to get all the results?
Answer: Unfortunately Impala does not support this. I've also found that the performance of Impala on HBase is very poor. I'm still trying to tweak my configurations so that the performance is better. Parquet in my experiments seems to be the fastest (by 100s of x). In fact event a flat tsv file with no compression was performing better than HBase. The following describes the use cases for Impala with HBase (directly from Cloudera documentation):

Use Cases for Querying HBase through Impala
The following are popular use cases for using Impala to query HBase tables:
Keeping large fact tables in Impala, and smaller dimension tables in HBase. The fact tables use Parquet or other binary file format optimized for scan operations. Join queries scan through the large Impala fact tables, and cross-reference the dimension tables using efficient single-row lookups in HBase.
  Using HBase to store rapidly incrementing counters, such as how many times a web page has been viewed, or on a social network, how many connections a user has or how many votes a post received. HBase is efficient for capturing such changeable data: the append-only storage mechanism is efficient for writing each change to disk, and a query always returns the latest value. An application could query specific totals like these from HBase, and combine the results with a broader set of data queried from Impala.
  Storing very wide tables in HBase. Wide tables have many columns, possibly thousands, typically recording many attributes for an important subject such as a user of an online service. These tables are also often sparse, that is, most of the columns values are NULL, 0, false, empty string, or other blank or placeholder value. (For example, any particular web site user might have never used some site feature, filled in a certain field in their profile, visited a particular part of the site, and so on.) A typical query against this kind of table is to look up a single row to retrieve all the information about a specific subject, rather than summing, averaging, or filtering millions of rows as in typical Impala-managed tables.
Or the HBase table could be joined with a larger Impala-managed table. For example, analyze the large Impala table representing web traffic for a site and pick out 50 users who view the most pages. Join that result with the wide user table in HBase to look up attributes of those users. The HBase side of the join would result in 50 efficient single-row lookups in HBase, rather than scanning the entire user table.

Specifically on running SQL queries against HBase. Have you looked into Pheonix? It does support salted tables and provides SQL syntax. I don't know how fast it is or how it compares to Dremel implementations though.


At what step is the difference made between a quesadilla and burrito?

Question: My quesadillas keep turning into burritos. This happens because I fold the tortilla in half but it doesn't stay so I tuck it in and roll it up by then it becomes a burrito (full and round). What's the difference? How do I make my quesadillas come out flat?
Comment: Hey y'all, pleeeeaase post answers as answers. It's okay if they're short. We want them to be in the right place and get voted on and all.
Comment: Normally melted cheese sticks the two sides of the folded over flour tortilla together in a quesadilla. Also, normally a quesadilla has no beans or rice at all inside it. They are so wildly different I suspect there are other things you are doing differently from a traditional quesadilla besides having trouble folding it. Pretty much they only ingredient they share is the large flour tortilla.
Comment: It sounds like you're making a quesarito.
Comment: @FakeName Are you sure it's not a burradilla?
Comment: Yep. Most of the burrito places around here (southern california) actually make them if you order one. Hell, Taco-Bell even has them on the menu now.
Answer: Quesadilla comes from queso, cheese, and that is mostly what goes in there. Maybe some jalapeños or onions, but that's really it.
In a burrito you'd add much more, both volume and variety, for example meat, rice, avocado, cream, cheese, chiles, and beans.
As far as I know the quesadilla goes in the pan on heat, whereas a burrito does not get heated after being wrapped up.
Comment: @Celeritas, if you add corn and beans to a flour tortilla, then it's reasonable to say you're no longer making a quesadilla.
Comment: @PLL A *deep*-fried burrito would usually be a [chimichanga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimichanga), so a briefly pan-fried one is heading in that direction, but I suppose could still be called a burrito without confusing people.
Comment: @SnakeDoc I didn't realize the uncanny valley applies to food as well as people. There's something... off with that picture.
Comment: I don't know how traditional it is, but at several restaurants around the US I've had burritos that had been briefly pan-fried before serving, and it was delicious!  And unquestionably still a burrito, not a quesadilla.
Comment: @ToddWilcox PLL is talking about grilled burritos. You can get them at a lot of places. Here's an example from Taco Bell: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/81/97/81/819781635396379165364ddd476349ef.jpg
Comment: I think the grilling of burritos is also to help the tortilla stiffen up a bit and resist tearing when you bite and squish the insides. It also helps it from unravelling when you set it down. I know the ones I make at home (which aren't grilled) have those problems vs grilled burritos at restaurants. The bit of crispy tortilla does also taste awesome and provide a bit of texture.
Comment: @Turch lol, ya it never looks quite like that picture when you get one. But the grilled burritos are very tasty. Other places besides fast food chains have them too.
Comment: Oh really? I definitely add more corn and beans than cheese or onions.
Answer: By far the easiest way to make flat quesadillas is just to use two tortillas, like a sandwich. No worries about folding things up that way.
If you want the folded in half or folded in thirds kind, the main things to keep in mind are that you want nice big flexible tortillas, and you don't want to overfill it. That should let you fold it fairly easily, and press it a little flatter with a spatula while it's in the pan without squeezing anything out. If your tortillas aren't terribly flexible, it may help to warm them a bit first. Otherwise they may break when you fold them, which isn't necessarily a problem, but doesn't look quite as nice.
I noticed in comments elsewhere that you mentioned not putting much cheese in either! That's important too - that's what makes it all stick together. Note that it won't stick until it's melted, though, so you still have to put it together right in the first place. You can still put a decent amount of other stuff in (meat, the corn and beans you like, whatever!) but you need enough cheese to balance it out.
Burritos, on the other hand, can take a lot more filling, and they're rolled up from the beginning. If you start out with that much filling, there's no way you're going to get it flat.
Comment: When using a lot of filling I prefer folded in half tortillas. With two tortillas it's easier for filling to spill out the sides, but with a fold you can load extra filling towards the folded edge where it can't spill out.
Comment: This is how I make quesadillas - two stacked with the filling in between. Less hassle, all the flavour.
Answer: The defining feature of a quesadilla, as the name implies, is cheese. If the primary filling isn't cheese, then what you're making isn't a quesadilla, no matter how close you come to a flat semicircle shape.
In other words, to answer the title question, the step where a quesadilla and a burrito diverge is step zero, when you decide what your fillings will be.

If it's mostly cheese, plus maybe a few things to flavor the cheese, then it'll be a quesadilla even if you totally mangle the folding-up step (or if you omit the folding-up step and use two tortillas). Heck, even if you omit the heating-after-filling step, if the filling is mostly cheese it'll still be a quesadilla, just maybe not a very good one.
If the filling involves primarily beans and corn, then your dish will almost certainly be considered a burrito, even if you don't manage to wrap the tortilla around the fillings very well, and even if you then heat the tortilla with the fillings. (It's not usual to heat a burrito after the fact like that, but it's been done.)
Answer: If you're really interested in the folded-over sort (I prefer this style and quantity), just smash it down with a spatula along the folded edge. If is still unfolding itself, perhaps you are overstuffing the tortilla a little, but you can still force the situation by resting something flat and heavy on top until the shape holds. Usually when the cheese starts to melt, it will stick together by itself anyway.
Answer: You're making a half quesadilla. Jefromi is right, the easiest way is to use two whole tortillas, which makes an entire quesadilla.
But if a whole queasdilla is more than you want... I find cutting the tortilla in half before adding the cheese, not folding during cooking, makes the flattest quesadilla.
You can use a knife or kitchen shears.
Answer: You kind of know the difference already, but your issues are blurring the line slightly. In a way you're discovering the evolution of the Mexican food types.
Burritos are more cylindrical and have more stuff and less cheese (usually). Quesadillas are mostly cheese and are usually flat and grilled/pressed - like a Mexican grilled cheese or panini. The higher cheese content is supposed to basically glue the thing together. Burritos can use less cheese because their construction is what holds everything together.
I'm thinking the reason your quesadillas are turning into burritos is that you're putting too much stuff in them and maybe folding too late. They should be flat like a double crusted pizza not packed like a calzone. In addition to reducing the amount of stuff, you can try to cut your stuff smaller so that it doesn't create as much bulk and can be more evenly distributed on the cheese. Maybe even only putting it on one side, leaving the other to flip over cleanly.
The idea is to warm a tortilla slightly, then put on the cheese, then extras, then more cheese. You can fold it and press it at this point or put on another warm tortilla. Ideally, the tortilla should still be soft but plenty warm and the cheese only slightly melted[ing] at this point. You might also press it down to just help things stick together better. After it's all folded or covered up, put it back on the hotplate and keep grilling and flipping until both sides begin to brown and stiffen up and the cheese has melted between everything. Normally, I'd use 2 tortillas to avoid creating a burrito or soft taco by accident but if you can't flip it over like a pancake without all the stuff falling out, it's not really living up to the name.
Anyway, that's my 2c.
Answer:
My quesadillas keep turning into burritos. This happens because I fold the tortilla in half but it doesn't stay so I tuck it in and roll it up by then it becomes a burrito (full and round).
How do I make my quesadillas come out flat?

I am not sure If I understood your problem, but if the tortilla is not "staying" (folded?) you can do a couple of things:
1) pre-heat the tortilla on both sides for a couple of seconds (the pan must already be hot before trying this)
2) wait for a reasonable time for the cheese to melt
3) now you can fold the tortilla and the melted cheese will help the tortilla to stay folded
It really doesn't take that much time in any of these steps, just make sure to pre-heat the pan
If you still have problems, it might be the case that the quality of the tortilla is not good enough. Some low-quality tortillas do not keep the heat for a long time, and start to break apart.

What's the difference?

Typically, a quesadilla is lighter: cheese only (pure quesadilla) or with a couple of fillings (for example you can add meat and make it a "quesataco").
A burrito, as you noted, will be tucked in and typically contain more fillings. Rice should never be one of them!
PS. The advice given by another answer to use two tortillas is incorrect. You do that when attempting to make a sincronizada (you would add ham too to do that).
Comment: Anyone who goes to a burrito place like Chipotle would tell you that of course burritos can include rice. I doubt there is really much limitation to what can be put in a burrito. When it comes to Tex-Mex, quesadilla can and often do include meat without becoming "quesatacos" which I've never heard of. Perhaps you should consider noting for which area your answer applies.
Comment: I am aware that many Tex-Mex chains such as Chipotle or Taco Bell sell burritos with rice inside. However, nowhere in Mexico will you ever find rice inside a burrito, hence my comment. The term quesataco is not widespread in Mexico, I regularly see it in Northwest Mexico. In other regions you will find many different names for tacos and/or quesadillas with different combinations of fillings (e.g. gringa, campechana, etc..).
Answer: A small detail some people are missing, burritos  are made usually with tortillas made of wheat, and quesadillas tortillas are made of corn.
(Of course you can make a quesadilla with wheat tortillas but traditionally they are made with corn at least that's more common in Mexico)
Comment: Thanks for pointing this out! That said, in the US, flour tortillas are very, very common for quesadillas. May not be authentic/traditional, but they're still very good. And generally it's much easier to get soft, flexible flour tortillas than soft, flexible corn tortillas in the US, and they crisp up very nicely, so flour is perhaps a better choice. A lot of the taquerias use flour tortillas too (ones that Mexican-Americans go to, too).


Gassing kegs of beer

Question: I am really new to using kegs and gas. I forgot to gas the keg and 1 week later attached the gas but the beer will not carbonate. Taste is good and puts a head on when poured which lasts for a while but the beer tastes flat as it is not carbonated, HELP.
Comment: Please provide more information.  How long did you wait after plugging the gas line?  At what pressure?
Comment: and what temperature?
Answer: This is one of  the great benefits you get when kegging. I usually keg my beers and store them for a week or two in my root cellar (@ 50-60ºF) before carbonating. I don't usually filter my final product so I find it beneficial to give the beer a little time to settle out some of the sediment that gets stirred up during transfer. It's also important to note that introducing gas during this window won't have any effect on the sediment settling out, but I personally notice a positive difference in taste when I wait to carbonate.
So to answer your question, you can indeed still carbonate this batch by force carbonating as outlined in Nhon Ha's answer, or just hook up the gas line and set it at 20psi for about a week (pull a test after about four days to see the progress). When you have the gas line hooked up and turned on, double check that the keg isn't leaking by using a soapy sponge to apply some suds to the connection points, main lid, and stress points. If you find bubbles at any point, turn off the gas and try to fix the leaks before continuing to carbonate.
One more note: Make sure your gassing at a colder temperature if possible. This will help the CO2 permeate the solution much more efficiently. Here's a helpful chart for determining proper carbonation levels for your kegging adventures:

Answer: You can still carbonate your beer. Put the gas into the keg, and shake the keg for 20mins or so until you stop hearing the gas going in. It then becomes carbonated. Best to put the keg on the side on the floor or table, and roll it back and forward.
Comment: Thats what I needed to know, great mate.
Comment: CO2 dissolves much more readily into cold beverages.  Make sure your beer is cold before attempting this.  Otherwise you need increased pressure, and there's a change of over-carbonating.
Answer: I came across this article recently and found it useful.
Thought I'd pass it on.
http://brulosophy.com/methods/carbonation-methods/
Comment: Very handy,screenshotted the whole lot.

Gassing kegs of beer


Bathroom Sink Tailpipe and P Trap do not line up horizontally

Question: I'm installing a new vanity, everything fits fine except the sink drain is about two inches farther out from the wall than the previous sink was. How can I get some horizontal extension? The outtake pipes are all glued, nothing to unscrew there. I tried a flexible p-trap fitting but it's going from a 1 1/4 inch sink tailpipe to a 2 inch outtake pipe.
Answer: The usual fix for this would be to extend the part of the pipe from the wall at the back of the cabinet out the amount needed to match up for the new sink drain location. In some instances there is a larger diameter pipe in the wall that the rear piece slides into and is secured with a compression washer and a clamp nut. The horizontal slide joint makes it much easier to adjust the P-trap joint.
In your situation due to the glued connections at the wall it can be more work to resolve this issue. Especially since it does not appear that there is much allowance to just cut and glue in new fittings. You will likely need to cut off the existing P-trap elbow from the rear wall extension. There is a small space just behind the elbow where this cut can be made. What you would be cutting there is a short piece of the pipe that is about 2 1/4 inches long that was glued in to join the P-trap elbow and the next fitting that extends out of the wall.
Once the elbow is cut off the next step is to hopefully be able to remove the remaining stub of pipe that is glued into the fitting from the wall. There are specialty rotary cutter tools that are made for carving out pipe stubs in existing fittings so that a new pipe extension can be glued in its place. This is one example of such a tool that is powered by an heavy duty electric drill (often one sized as a 1/2" drill).

(Picture Source: https://www.homedepot.com/p/JSC-2-in-Socket-Saver-J44200/302575481?MERCH=REC-_-PIPHorizontal2_rr-_-302575482-_-302575481-_-N)
The other ugly alternative that you have in a situation like this is to cut into the drywall to open up the wall enough so that you can access the drain pipe where it is possible to cut where you can then use a coupler fitting and new pipe and fittings that are measured out to meet the new sink location. Subsequent repair of the drywall makes a much larger project of the repair such that the cost of trying the tool shown above is a very tidy alternative.
Comment: A variant on this approach would be to cut the elbow off at it's collar onto the stub, and see if you can remove the glued on portion keeping the stub intact.  Requires patience and maybe some Dremel skills.
Answer: I would extend the outlet pipe from the wall, depending on the supplier you can get the joints with rubber seals which make adjustment easier.
Then either shorten the drop from the sink or extend the outlet vertical.
Comment: There appears to be a slip joint on the sink tailpiece that will serve the vertical issue.


Check if user is logged in using JQuery

Question: I want to execute custom jquery code which shows login dialog to user if he clicks a button and he is not logged in. How could I do that?
Answer: Check the class attribute for body: If the theme is using body_class() the body has a class named logged-in for users that are logged in. Be aware the function can be used on the element html too.
Example with jQuery:
if(jQuery('body').hasClass('logged-in')){
    // Do something
}

Example with pure JavaScript:
if (document.body.classList.contains('logged-in')) {
    // do something
}

You can also just use is_user_logged_in() as a condition to enqueue or print the script.
Comment: top marks for this answer - simple and effective.
Comment: I like the idea of just checking the body for `logged-in` class. Just have to be sure that themes use `body_class();` or `get_body_class();` Otherwise, that's not a super reliable solution. Although, I use those functions in my themes, so that's a good solution for me. Thanks for the simple idea.
Answer: In case you want to know if the user is logged in at the current moment, try this. The other answers check if the user is logged in or not when the page loaded, not the time when you're running the javascript. The user could have logged in in a separate tab, for instance.
Put this in your javascript
var data = {
    action: 'is_user_logged_in'
};

jQuery.post(ajaxurl, data, function(response) {
    if(response == 'yes') {
        // user is logged in, do your stuff here
    } else {
        // user is not logged in, show login form here
    }
});

Put this in your functions.php
function ajax_check_user_logged_in() {
    echo is_user_logged_in()?'yes':'no';
    die();
}
add_action('wp_ajax_is_user_logged_in', 'ajax_check_user_logged_in');
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_is_user_logged_in', 'ajax_check_user_logged_in');

Comment: What is the value of ajaxurl?
Comment: wordpress sets it to 'yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php'. That's the url on which all the ajax requests are supposed to be sent
Comment: [codex](codex.wordpress.org/AJAX_in_Plugins) said that in latest wordpress versions this is already defined. Maybe you can define your own version of ajaxurl with wp_localize_script
Comment: Incase anyone get the ajaxurl is not defined... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17710728/how-to-load-ajax-in-wordpress#17713643
Comment: I put the jQuery.post inside jquery click handler but this doesn't work. do you have any idea how to solve it?
Comment: I saw that ajaxurl is not defined in the console.
Comment: The url should always point to "domain.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"
Comment: @MridulAggarwal Thank you very much for this. Really thanks a lot.
Comment: where is functions.php?
Comment: `wp-content/themes//functions.php`- make sure you check your current active theme from WordPress admin.
Answer: Please add body_class() to your html body
<body <?php body_class(); ?>>
   //your html code

This will add logged-in for logged user then you can use following jquery code to execute your custom juqery code only for logged user.
if ($('body').hasClass('logged-in')) {
       //execute your jquery code.
}

Comment: good, but it wouldnt tell actual login state if you use a cacheing plugin with page cache enabled.
Comment: I dunno why this one was down voted. Approach is fully valid. +1
Comment: I dont know. I have same question. Answer is valid but why down vote.
Comment: Hm. Maybe because it uses jQuery instead of the right way (using a filter and the callback). Some people are allergic to jQuery.
Answer: Please note that none of the above examples are reliable in case you use a page cacheing plugin, then the code in body tag will be static. Also there is a simple way to do this (with no extra query to ajax which is not optimal)
If you want to test user logged in state with javascript, you can use this code to set cookie when user logged in and delete cookie when user logged out. Add this eg. to your theme functions.php
function login_function() {
    setcookie('wp_user_logged_in', 1, time() + 31556926, '/');
    $_COOKIE['wp_user_logged_in'] = 1;
}
add_action('wp_login', 'login_function');

function logout_function() {
    unset($_COOKIE['wp_user_logged_in']);
    setcookie('wp_user_logged_in', null, -1, '/');
}
add_action('wp_logout', 'logout_function');

Then its a simple test of cookie in javascript.
if (document.cookie.indexOf('wp_user_logged_in') !== -1) {
    //do something when user logged in
} else {
    //do something when user logged out
}

Comment: This is indeed pretty simple, reliable and in worst case executes almost instantly after page load (if loading script in footer without render blocking) unlike other answers. Ajax is slow and relying on body classes will fail on caching. Need to add this cookie to Cookie Policy text. Thank You Janos.
Comment: As a follow-up, there is a problem with synchronization of default WordPress cookies and newly created script-accessible cookie, but I've received a great and simple answer on how to solve it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56208574/setting-script-accessible-cookie-expiry-based-on-wordpress-logged-in-cookie
Answer: Another example, in case you want to use it for AJAX calls.
// Simplified... please note, that all names/vars/etc. in my class got unique names.
// ...the same goes for the script handler.
class wpse69814_example
{
    public $response;

    public function __construct()
    {
        add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', array( $this, 'enqueue' ) );
        add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', array( $this, 'localize' ), 20 );
    }

    public function enqueue()
    {
        wp_enqueue_script(
            'wpse69814_handler',
            plugins_url( 'url/to/file.js', __FILE__ ),
            array( 'jquery' ),
            filemtime( plugins_dir_path( __FILE__ ).'/path/to/file.js' ),
            true
        );
    }

    public function localize()
    {
        wp_localize_script( 'wpse69814_handler, 'wpse69814_object', array(
            'ajaxurl'    => admin_url( 'admin-ajax.php' ),
            'ajax_nonce' => wp_create_nonce( 'wpse69814_nonce' ),
            'action'     => 'wpse69814-handler-action',
            'data'       => array(
               'is_user_logged_in' => is_user_logged_in(),
            )
         )

    }
}

Comment: To note, this approach doesn't work behind CDN. :D
Comment: @BrianFegter Might want to explain (or [edit] it in) why? :)
Comment: Since the CDN doesn't authenticate with WordPress, `is_user_logged_in` will be cached as false in the DOM when origin is hit User state should be abstracted out to a no-cache thread via XHR when using a CDN. @Mridul Aggarwal's approach works but with no-cache headers in the response.
Comment: @BrianFegter Good catch. Fixed that... I think. Upvoted other answers as well.
Answer: Thanks to this post and another post, I found a solution to my issue. I'm just posting in case anyone might find it useful.
Works on current WordPress sites
This code checks if user is logged or not using jquery. If the user is NOT logged in, it prevents the user from right clicking content and copying images and text.
$(document).ready(function(){

    // if user is not logged in...
    if (!document.querySelector('body.logged-in')){
        //lock all content
        disableSelection(document.body);
        // disable image click
        $('img').bind('contextmenu', function(e){return false;});
        console.log('hello');
    }

    // function to lock all content
    function disableSelection(target){
        $(function() {
             $(this).bind("contextmenu", function(e) {
                 e.preventDefault();
             });
         });
         if (typeof target.onselectstart!="undefined") //For IE
              target.onselectstart=function(){return false}
         else if (typeof target.style.MozUserSelect!="undefined") //For Firefox
              target.style.MozUserSelect="none"
         else //All other route (For Opera)
              target.onmousedown=function(){return false}
         target.style.cursor = "default";
    }
})

Answer: I am using an alternative way without ajaxurl and body class. I just don't trust the body class, that might not exist in all of the themes.
In functions.php you should have:
add_action( 'wp_body_open', 'custom_body_open' );

function custom_body_open() {
    $logged_in = is_user_logged_in() ? 'yes' : 'no'; //WP function to check if user is logged in or not
    echo '

';
}

That creates an invisible div at the start of body tag with:

class name "user_is_logged_in" - only for jQuery reference.
style "display: none" - makes div invisible. Instead you can use CSS: .user_is_logged_in { display: none }
"data-(logged-in)" value "yes" (logged in) or "no" (not logged in). That value will later be asked with jQuery.

In jQuery I ask the "data-logged-in" value and then act accordingly:
jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
    var logged_in = $(".user_is_logged_in").data("logged-in") == 'yes' ? true : false;
    if (logged_in) {
        ...
    }
    else {
        ...
    }
}

Answer: Here is the WordPress script that will add class into the Body tag if the user is login or not login
https://gist.github.com/raftaar1191/55fe297db0724e62883846b3ed31b543
Answer: I appreciated all the answers but localize script or checking the css class would be, in my opinion, not the best practice as the css class checking is not 100% reliable and the localize script function is, as the name suggests, localising.
After Wordpress 4.5 the best solution would be adding an inline script as follows:
<?php

function detect_login() {
  $isLoggedIn = is_user_logged_in();
  wp_register_script( 'detect_login', '' );
  wp_enqueue_script( 'detect_login');
  wp_add_inline_script( 'detect_login', "var isLoggedIn = $isLoggedIn" );
}

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'detect_login' );

And then obviously check the global scope which is now sadly polluted by our global var isLoggedIn as follows: window.isLoggedIn
Comment: This is just what `wp_localize_script()` does.
Comment: @JacobPeattie Yes, the reason why they created `wp_add_inline_script()` is to avoid people using the localize script function to declare global variables. As the name suggests this is a better fit, why using something else which in the beginning wasn't intended for that purpose if we have a good alternative?
Comment: That's not what it was added for. It was added to support adding small bits of executable code before or after a script, to support things like font loaders. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/03/08/enhanced-script-loader-in-wordpress-4-5/
Comment: @JacobPeattie exactly, and what was `wp_localize_script()` string added for? Polluting the global scope with global variables? Or to actually localize as the name suggests?
Comment: What are you talking about? wp_localize_script forces you to namespace your variables inside an object. Your own answer is adding a variable to the global scope without any sort of namespace.
Comment: @JacobPeattie ehm, where do you think you will store the object from the `wp_localize_script()`? hint: `window`, anyways as you are so attached to `wp_localize_script()` feel free to keep your opinion about using it for declaring variables not related to localising instead of using the vanilla function made to do so, to each his own.

Check if user is logged in using JQuery


What's the best way to deal with Questions that have "Not possible" as an answer?

Question: I've asked some "how-to" questions that turned out that I can't do what i'm asking for. I receive that "Not possible" answer in the comments, because there is no actual answer for the question. In this case, is it better to delete the question or is it more beneficial for other users to leave the unanswered question as it is with only the comment ?
Answer: IMO "not possible" is a just fine answer, as long as there is given specific reasoning as to why.
The best course of action would be to encourage the commenter to hash out his assessment in an answer, since comments are ephemeral.
Sometimes it's simply the best answer that can be given and it should be treated as such.
If the commenter does not react to this and hasn't given any reasoning: Do some research and answer the question yourself! A question with an answer is often better than a question with no answer, or even a deleted question.
Answer: I want to add that sometimes things not possible when the question is asked become possible after some new technology appears or workarounds get invented.
So it is better to leave the question as it is.


Geodesic segments on the unit sphere

Question: Let $\mathbb{S}^2$ be the unit sphere and $d$ be the geodesic distance.  For any three points $A,B,C\in \mathbb{S}^2$ and $0<\lambda<1$, let $A_{\lambda}$ and $B_{\lambda}$ be points on the geodesic paths $[A,C]$ and $[B,C]$ such that $d(A_{\lambda},C)=\lambda d(A,C)$ and $d(B_{\lambda},C)=\lambda d(B,C)$. Assume that  $d(C,A)\le \pi/2, d(C,B)\le \pi/2$. It is geometrically clear that $d(A_{\lambda},B_{\lambda})\ge \lambda d(A,B)$. But proving it mathematically seems troublesome. Does anyone have a good proof or a direct reference?
Comment: If you are not afraid to use high powered machinery, this probably follows from one of the [comparison theorems in Riemannian geometry](http://www.amazon.com/Comparison-Theorems-Riemannian-Geometry-Publishing/dp/0821844172), using that $\mathbb{S}^2$ has non-negative curvature. But you are right that there probably is a simpler proof in this special case.
Comment: It would have made sense to link to [this related question](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/81878/ratio-of-geodesic-segments-on-the-sphere) of yours.
Answer: For $\mathbb{S}^2$, since you assme $d(C,A)$ and $d(C,B) \leq \pi/2$, you can take the geodesic normal coordinate system centered at $C$ which covers at least the "northern hemisphere". Use $\exp$ to denote the exponential map at $C$.
By the definition of geodesic distance, $d(A,B) \leq L(\gamma)$ where $\gamma$ is any curve connecting $A,B$, and $L$ its length.
Now let $$\gamma = \exp \circ (\lambda^{-1}\times \exp^{-1}(\eta_\lambda))$$ where $\eta_\lambda$ is the geodesic connecting $A_\lambda$ and $B_\lambda$. By the definition of the exponential map, $\gamma$ connects $A,B$. So it suffices to show that
$$ L(\gamma) \leq \lambda^{-1} d(A_\lambda,B_\lambda) $$
This however follows from the fact that (by explicit computation) that the standard metric on the sphere, when pulled back by the exponential map, is "decreasing" in the radial direction. (More precisely, if $v$ be a vector in $\mathbb{R}^2 = T_p(T_C\mathbb{S}^2)$, let $w_p = d(\exp_C(p))\circ v$, we have that as $p$ moves radially outward $|w_p|$ is nonincreasing.)  Hence by "rescaling" $\gamma_\lambda$ to $\gamma$ in the tangent space you have that the length increases less than the linear scaling factor. This concludes the proof.

Geodesic segments on the unit sphere


Does using a kernel function make the data linearly separable? If so, why using soft-margin SVM?

Question: I'm reading about SVM and I learned that we use a kernel function so the data become linearly separable in the high dimensional (vector?) space. But then I also learned that they use the soft-margin idea. But my question is why to use a soft-margin if the data is going to be linearly separable anyway in the high space? Or does that mean that even after mapping with the kernel it doesn't necessarily mean that it will become linearly separable?
Answer: Does using a kernel function make the data linearly separable?
In some cases, but not others. For example, the linear kernel induces a feature space that's equivalent to the original input space (up to dot product preserving transformations like rotation and reflection). If the data aren't linearly separable in input space, they won't be in feature space either. Polynomial kernels with degree >1 map the data nonlinearly into a higher dimensional feature space. Data that aren't linearly separable in input space may be linearly separable in feature space (depending on the particular data and kernel), but may not be in other cases. RBF kernels map the data nonlinearly into an infinite-dimensional feature space. If the kernel bandwidth is chosen small enough, the data are always linearly separable in feature space.
When linear separability is possible, why use a soft-margin SVM?
The input features may not contain enough information about class labels to perfectly predict them. In these cases, perfectly separating the training data would be overfitting, and would hurt generalization performance. Consider the following example, where points from one class are drawn from an isotropic Gaussian distribution, and points from the other are drawn from a surrounding, ring-shaped distribution. The optimal decision boundary is a circle through the low density region between these distributions. The data aren't truly separable because the distributions overlap, and points from each class end up on the wrong side of the optimal decision boundary.

As mentioned above, an RBF kernel with small bandwidth allows linear separability of the training data in feature space. A hard-margin SVM using this kernel achieves perfect accuracy on the training set (background color indicates predicted class, point color indicates actual class):

The hard margin SVM maximizes the margin, subject to the constraint that no training point is misclassified. The RBF kernel ensures that it's possible to meet this constraint. However, the resulting decision boundary is completely overfit, and will not generalize well to future data.
Instead, we can use a soft margin SVM, which allows some margin violations and misclassifications in exchange for a bigger margin (the tradeoff is controlled by a hyperparameter). The hope is that a bigger margin will increase generalization performance. Here's the output for a soft margin SVM with the same RBF kernel:

Despite more errors on the training set, the decision boundary is closer to the true boundary, and the soft margin SVM will generalize better. Further improvements could be made by tweaking the kernel.
Comment: (continued)  So it seems the "effective dimensionality" we can take advantage of with a finite precision machine can be lower than $n$ for larger $\sigma$. I suspect what's happening here is that larger $\sigma$ gives smoother feature space mappings with less curvature, so the arrangement of points in feature space can get flattened out along many directions. I was thinking of writing a question about this.
Comment: Yes, that's a good point, and something I'm trying to understand better too. It's true that feature space is infinite dimensional. And, the RBF kernel is positive definite, so the kernel matrix should be full rank, indicating that the data will occupy an $n$ dimensional subspace of feature space (and therefore be linearly separable). But, empirically, increasing the bandwidth $\sigma$ can reduce the variance along many directions in feature space, to the point that it's numerically indistinguishable from zero. (continue)
Comment: @amoebasaysReinstateMonica A very complex non-linear mapping will make a sample linearly separable (unless there are two exact points with different labels), however such guarantee doesn't propagate to the population. For example if we have data from two gaussians with different means, there is no transformation that will have 0 classification error on the population, but you will find one for the sample at hand.
Comment: Thanks for the link @IgorF that's a nice animation
Comment: +1. A very nice answer. Regarding linear separability with the RBF kernel: you write that it will happen "if the kernel bandwidth is chosen small enough". How small is enough here? And why would it *not* hold if the bandwidth is large? The dimensionality of the target space is $\infty$ independent of the bandwidth and my intuition is that if $n<p$ then any data are linearly separable. Clearly $n<\infty$ for any $n$.
Comment: @user20160 You are absolutely right. Theoretically, every dataset with distinct points is linearly separable in the RBF-induced feature space, regardless of the kernel width. In practice, you run into numerical issues. You might check the answer here (https://stats.stackexchange.com/a/521569/169343) for an intuitive, simple example.
Answer: You are convoluting two different things. The classification algorithm used by SVM is always linear (e.g. a hyperplane) in some feature space induced by a kernel. Hard margin SVM, which is typically the first example you encounter when learning SVM, requires linearly separable data in feature space or there is no solution to the training problem. Typically, this first example works in input space but the same can be done in any feature space of your choosing.

But my question is why to use a soft-margin if the data is going to be linearly separable anyway in the high space?

Soft-margin SVM does not require data to be separable, not even in feature space. This is the key difference between hard and soft margin. Soft-margin SVM allows instances to fall within the margin and even on the wrong side of the separating hyperplane, but penalizes these instances using hinge loss.

Or does that mean that even after mapping with the kernel it doesn't necessarily mean that it will become linearly separable?

The use of a nonlinear kernel never gives any guarantees to make any data set linearly separable in the induced feature space. This is not necessary. The reason we use kernels is to map the data from input space onto a higher dimensional space, in which a (higher dimensional) hyperplane will be better at separating the data. That is all. If data is perfectly separable in feature space, your training accuracy is $1$ by definition. This is still rare even when using kernels.
You can find kernels that make data linearly separable, but this usually requires very complex kernels which lead to results that generalize poorly. An example of this would be an RBF kernel with very high $\gamma$, which basically yields the unit matrix as kernel matrix (this is perfectly separable but will generalize badly on unseen data).
Comment: Good answer. More explicitly: If a kernel function would guarantee that it would always be able to linearly separate data, it would be useless. This is almost exactly the definition of a function with infinite VC-dimension, which means that you will never be able to learn/generalize the correct function regardless of the amount of data. See here: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shashua/papers/class11-PAC2.pdf
Comment: I am confused, Marc and @Bitwise. I thought that when using Gaussian kernel, the [implicit] dimension of the feature space is $\infty$ and I also thought that $n$ points are almost surely linearly separable whenever $n<p$ which of course holds when $p=\infty$. If true, then any dataset should be linearly separable when using any RBF kernel (and obviously RBF kernels are still *not* useless). What am I missing? This is the same point made [in another comment](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/94003/#comment629569_94007) below.
Comment: To be honest, I think this answer is simply wrong so -1. *Any* RBF kernel yields linear separation on *any* data. Will be happy to revert the downvote if the answer is edited to clarify (and to explain why we still want to use soft-margin *despite* linear separability).
Comment: @amoeba You are right (in theory): Any RBF kernel yields linear separation. But, for small $\gamma$ (large $\sigma$), the non-linearity of the transformation (or the curvature in the relevant part of the feature space) is low, so in practice you run into numerical issues. See the answer here (https://stats.stackexchange.com/a/521569/169343) for an intuitive graphical example.
Answer: Yes, it becomes linearly separable, especially if you always use the RBF kernel which maps to infinite dimensional space.
When people talk about soft margin, it is different from what you are thinking. The SVM by design expects that the functional margin [1] for the two classes be atleast 1. This requirement, however, need not be always satisfied, since this requirement is stricter than just being linearly separable. Thereby, you introduce slack variables to accommodate points that don't satisfy the functional margin requirement.
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14658452/how-to-understand-the-functional-margin-in-svm
Some more material to read:
1] Given a set of points in two dimensional space, how can one design decision function for SVM?
2] How to understand effect of RBF SVM
Comment: Using a Gaussian kernel DOES make the data points linearly separable (as long as they are distinct from each other). This is because a Gaussian kernel corresponds to a feature map that maps n distinct points into n linearly independent points in an n-dimensional (sub-)space (check the comments after Theorem 2.6 in [pdf](http://lgg.epfl.ch/publications/2006/eigensatz_2006_IGG.pdf)). Now note that n linearly independent points in an n-dimensional space can always be separated by a half-plane no matter what the labels are.
Comment: -1. Soft-margin SVM does **not** require nor guarantee linear separation in feature space. To see this: use soft margin SVM with a linear kernel on non-separable data and you will still get a result. Soft-margin SVM penalizes points that are within the margin and misclassified *in feature space*, typically using hinge loss. @AlexTwain your interpretation is correct.
Comment: Sure, the data may not be linearly separable in the input space. That says nothing about their separability in the high dimensional space that kernels map them to?!
Comment: this is strange because I was watching Andrew NG video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUv9bfMPMb4#t=2235 where he introduced the soft-margin idea based on the idea of some examples not being linearly separable!
Comment: +1. I thought that using soft-margin SVM introduces a hyper-parameter that acts as a regularization strength. Increasing the soft-margin increases regularization, which can be beneficial even if the data are linearly separable (as they always are with an RBF kernel). Is this correct? If so, it looks like the key to answering this question but you don't mention regularization at all. Is it somehow related to what you are saying about functional margin? I am not sure I understand your argument well.
Answer: Although it is possible to select the Gaussian kernel and achieve separability in the feature space, this might not be the best strategy for minimizing the expected loss (i.e. the true risk as opposed to the empirical risk). Consider an example of labeled points in $\mathbb{R}^3$ where negative points lie in the ($\ell_2$) unit ball and positive points lie outside the ball of radius 2. However, suppose there also are a few outliers in the training sample: a few positive points lie in the "negative" region inside the unit ball.
Now, if we use a polynomial kernel that includes the $\ell_2$ norm of the data points as a new dimension, then we can almost linearly separate the data in the feature space. There are a few outliers of course, so we will still have some training error using this kernel. However, if the outliers correspond to fundamental noise in our problem, then it might be the case that the Bayes optimal decision rule in fact is the hypothesis that classifies points as positive if there norm is at least two and negative otherwise.
Indeed, if the outliers arise because for some points $x$ the label is not deterministic in the sense that $P(Y = 1 \mid X = x) \in (0, 1)$ rather than being $0$ or $1$, then the noise is fundamental to the problem and we should avoid fitting to it. We could instead go with a Gaussian kernel which makes the data linearly separable, but this would amount to overfitting and hurt the true risk of our hypothesis.
This example shows that there are cases when one does want to use a kernel, the data may still not be linearly separable in the new feature space, and so we still need the soft-margin SVM formulation.


Why do religious people find it hard to accept that you don't need religion to have a good moral code?

Question: Just curious why some religious people think that without god there is only evil. Why can't a person without a religion be a good person, sometimes even better than some religious people?
Comment: You are asking 3 questions at the same time, and all 3 are different in important ways. Which one do you want answered?
Comment: Your assumption is wrong at the very basic level.  You attribute a certain belief to all religious people that is just simply inaccurate.  If I asked, "Why do all atheists..." that would be an absurd question as well.
Comment: This question sounds very rhetorical. From a Biblical perspective the answe would be that not all people without God are evil, many non believers are good, and that even those who find God are still true and literal sinners.
Comment: The assumption that religious people don't accept this is absurd.  Of course people can live moral lives without believing in God.  I'm voting to close unless it is changed to indicate that only a few people believe this.
Comment: Welcome to the site, but making such assumptions is completely invalid.
Comment: We don't. That's  misconception.  see this: http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/14512/without-god-is-there-only-evil
Comment: @Narnian Feel free to provide your arguments of why my assumptions are wrong, as others have done very well below. Thanks!
Comment: There is a nugget of truth to your premise here, but your particular statements and the loadedness of the question obscure it. Catholic thinkers and authorities, at least a good number of them, would agree that *stable* morality necessarily bubbles up from religious doctrine. Without the doctrine, ethical systems tend to "worship" finite, evanescent realities. So, the non-religious ethical (or "moral") systems tend to change in their very essence. Religious moral may yield an evolving set of rules, but tend to be stable in essence.
Comment: Made an edit to my answer and actually answered your question.
Comment: Read "How to drink orange juice to the glory of God" because it effectively answers your question about believers and non-believers doing good: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/how-to-drink-orange-juice-to-the-glory-of-god
Answer: Its not necessary for a person to have a religion to have good moral codes.
Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) was a Babylonian King who gave one of the First Law in the World. The law was very similar the Mosaic Law, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth".

Exodus 21:24  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
  foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Every human is given the ability to decide what is right and wrong. Even the murderers kill others knowing that it is bad, but they just don't care.
Many religions give the idea that doing good deeds is the way to Heaven and doing bad things will lead you to Hell. Thus promoting the idea of Salvation by Work. Some religions even lay down obligations to be fulfilled in order to enter Heaven/Paradise.
Christianity has a different concept. The Bible teaches us the idea of Salvation by Grace.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through
  faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by
  works, so that no one can boast.

Your good deeds will not open the gates of Heaven. Your bad deeds are also not the main  reason why you should go to Hell. But Christians should do good deeds because we are saved by grace. Christians are called to be Holy, because God is Holy.

Romans 12:1 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view
  of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
  pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Christ died for our sins. He took all our punishment on the cross. When we remember how much God had done for us, we recieve the power to overcome sin and reflect Christ-like character.
Comment: Although I agree with your statements, I don't think you are answering the question.
Answer: I have not heard any Christian claim this in any academic setting. The most Christians usually say about morality in this context is that without a transcendent law giver no absolute morality can be derived and that without one we are left with either a regress into subjectivity or a complete denial of morality. Or in other words if God is dead than all questions of morality die with it.
None of which has any bearing on whether any specific person is morally good or not. Their may have been some random Christian lay man who thinks this but I really doubt that any person who defends Biblical morality in the public square would ever claim such a thing.
Comment: According to this study http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2006/UR_RELEASE_MIG_2816.html Atheist are the most distrusted group in America. See also http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AtheitsHated.htm
Comment: If you say so. I'm not an American so I cannot speak about what Americans believe.
Answer: Because "good" is either a transcendent qualifier or a personal one.   If it is a personal one, then it becomes meaningless, as everyone would be perfectly "good" by their own personal moral codes. If, on the other hand, it is a transcendent one, then that "good" is measured against a higher standard.
The contention is that without religion, people don't really have a true basis for identifying "good" in the first place.   This is often misunderstood as a contention that irreligious people can't be "good," but that's a misunderstanding;  Most people would happily agree that irreligious people happen to be pretty "good" oftentimes, but it's almost in spite of themselves (and that's the point).   The give-away is that when trying to establish how "good" they are, irreligious people tend to appeal to arbitrary standard with a certain odd dogma that their views don't justify.
For example, I might say I'm good because I'm faithful to my wife, or I haven't killed any one, or I give to charity, etc....but all these things are arbitrary, and none of them are inherently "good" if one rejects all manner of transcendent moral rule.
Incidentally, different cultures and sub-cultures have held such traits (as the ones that make me "good") with different levels of esteem and contempt, so even if someone appeals to something vague like "society," we still run into a problem that all societies, then, are on equal footing in terms of morality: by definition, they'd all be perfectly moral.   Without a standard that's higher still then there's no way to judge one society (or, maybe, more specifically one of a particular society's tenets) as more moral than another.
Answer: I really actually know very few Christians who think like this. At most they would argue that any moral code without religious implications is ultimately egoist. This would be to say that moral decisions that seem altruist or selfless are actually, even in a roundabout way, self-serving. This is more philosophical, though, and really any more discussion on egoism and the argument that all ethical code is egoist is beyond the scope of this site.
My selected answer on this related question sums up why one might argue that you cannot be good without God. Basically, to the Christian, God defines good, not you. If he is not there to define it then you would simply define it for yourself making it a code you approve of, likely because it is easy for you to follow. Now everyone else has their own code too, therefore, good and morality become completely subjective and have no bearing on the whole. Therefore, no one is absolutely good; they are only subjectively good, which may or may not overlap with others.
Now if you get a group of like minded persons together and they all agree 'this' is what is good you still have the same issue. That group has no more right then anyone else to make moral laws and decrees, therefore, to one who objects, it is not valid, whether the group can enforce it or not.
Ultimately, the Christian who argues this must argue that because God is the creator (owner) and has the power to enforce His decrees He is the only one just to make those decrees. This combined with the 'subjective good' issue laid out above makes the argument very convincing.
This is not to say though that a Christian who thinks this thinks the world would fall into oblivion without God. That is really just opinion and conjecture.
Answer: I know this is more of an argument than an answer, but the question that you asked is based more on stereotype than mainstream belief within the church. I don't blame you because it's actually very common, especially in an age like today where the one-in-a-million weirdo can actually be heard by millions online.
Though you might not be interested in Scripture, the following is some of the most important verses concerning sin.  It was written by a man named Paul that is respected as one of the most important people in the new testament. Paul was noted in the bible to have been one of the biggest persecutors of Christians - it is said that he was likely involved in the killings of many Christians before his conversion.
Also note that this was written after he was saved. When he speaks of his personal sin and his lack of control, he's speaking as a true Christian who had already received far more blessing than I would ever hope for.
Romans 7:14 says:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a
  slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I
  do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to
  do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself
  who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself
  does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the
  desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do
  the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on
  doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do
  it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right
  there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see
  another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and
  making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a
  wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject
  to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our
  Lord!

He is admitting that he is a sinner (not to be saved -he had already found salvation -but to hold himself accountable) and that he doesn't always do the right things that he knows is required of him, and that he often does that which is wrong even though he doesn't want to (presumably wants to at the time, but doesn't want to do such things in general). This is the testimony of a true Christian -an actual right hand man of Jesus, like few (if any) from his time on could ever claim.
Comment: [See all the formatting goodies here](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/editing-help).
Comment: Will fix. Might even delete it, not very productive.


Battery usage by certain applications

Question: Can I find out how much battery takes running of certain application?
The goal is to minimize using applications that take a lot of battery and maximize battery persistence before having to recharge.
Comment: That question makes no sense as all apps and services will one way or another, suck up battery juice, and don't forget including wifi, bluetooth and 3G data. Mileage will vary from one user to the next. Screen display time, running services, what apps are active.. not to mention, is the cpu overclocked, what governor is running in the kernel, etc ... far too many variables in the equation that you just simply cannot pin down..
Comment: Whatever you do, don't even think of going down the road of killing the apps that you perceive to be sucking up the most battery juice either! ;)
Answer: If you go to Settings -> Battery(settings -> about phone -> battery in < ICS) . You'll see battery usage by everything running on your phone. If some certain application consumes very high battery, it will be listed there along with battery usage. You can then minimize use of such application.
Comment: That's strange but in `settings -> about phone -> battery use` there aren't any applications in my phone, but there are running applications.
Comment: I don't remember seeing any application until and unless it eats at least 2 % of the battery.
Answer: If you have a newer version of android (Ice Cream Sandwich) you just go to Settings > Battery, and you'll find a list of what's sucking the most battery.
Answer: I see.. Your main concern is to save battery life and identify which app consumes the most of your battery.
You can use the hidden built-in android battery usage monitor using the guide below.
Dial this code in your phone dialer * # * # 4636 # * # * then press on Usage statistics

From here you could see how long your app is running even if it's running as service ex.(update gps position, get movement xyz axis for pedometer, compass, wifi/network location, barometer, Ambient Light Sensor or etc).

Battery usage by certain applications


Evaluating $\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{3x^2}{4x^2}$

Question: of $3x^2/4x^2 $
Is it undefined or $6/8$?
If we apply the Hospital rule we get $6/8$, so I think it is $6/8$.
It would be undefined if it were $3x^2/4x^3$.
Comment: Don't need to go to Hospital.
Answer: Note that for all $x\neq 0$:
$$\frac{3x^2}{4x^2} = \frac{3}{4}.
$$
Hence then limit is
$$
\lim_{x\to 0}\;\frac{3x^2}{4x^2} = \lim_{x\to 0}\;\frac{3}{4} = \frac{3}{4}.
$$
This of course is the same as $\displaystyle{\frac{6}{8}}$.
The thing is that considering the limit you may assume that $x$ is not equal to zero.
Answer: When evaluating limits, remember that the function value at the point is immaterial. What matters is what happens in a "deleted neighborhood" i.e. a neighborhood without the point. So in this case, the function is 3/4 everywhere except at x=0. Hence the limit as x tends to 0 is 3/4. Not undefined just because the function is undefined there.
Answer: Here again, while in this problem you CAN use l'Hopital's rule, there really is NO need to use it in this case, and using it doesn't make this limit any easier solve.
We have that for all $x\neq 0$: $\quad \dfrac{3x^2}{4x^2} = \dfrac{3}{4} \left(=\dfrac68\right).$
$$\text{So }\quad \lim_{x\to 0}\;\frac{3x^2}{4x^2} = \lim_{x\to 0}\;\frac{3}{4} = \frac{3}{4}.$$
When taking the limit as $x\to 0$, all that matters is what is happening as $x$ gets VERY VERY close to $0$, not what is happening AT $x = 0$.

It may very well be that for some functions, $\lim_{x\to 0} f(x) = c$ for some value $c$ and that $f(0) = c$, but all that really matters is what happens very near to $x = 0$.
Comment: Why this poor man is named frequently, Hospial? :D
Answer: It is $\frac34$ everywhere except at $x=0$, for both positive and negative $x$, so $\frac34$ is the limit at $x=0$.
Comment: ...so $\frac34$ is the limit as $x\to 0$, (limit "at" $x$ "=" $0$ may further confuse).


New battery dead after 48 hours

Question: My 3 yr old battery went dead and would not jump off. Replaced it. After 48 hours it was dead. Jumped it off. Held charge another 10 hrs. Dead again. Took to a shop. They replaced the negative cable end. Went to pick it up 3 hrs later it was dead. After they checked the battery. Said my new battery was no good. Went and got a new one. Another 48 hours and it's dead again. 2005 Ford Focus. Any suggestions?
Comment: The car is almost 15 years old, and there's something wrong with its electrical system: either a charging system failure (as @Paulster2 mentions above), or a wiring or component fault that creates a persistent, parasitic drain as soon as a battery is installed in the vehicle.
Comment: So should I take it back to the shop and ask them to do a parasitic drain check?
Comment: "The shop said they did a electrical diagnostic" If it was thorough they would have found the parasitic drain.
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair! Is the alternator working? If so, how was it verified? Has anything changed in the vehicle, such as adding a new electronic part (radio) or something else? Has any other electrical maintenance been done to the vehicle in the past while? Any other strange things happening with lights or electrically driven parts?
Comment: Nothing new. I have had the alternator check at a auto shop and a parts store. Both said the alternator is fine. The negative battery cable end replaced. This is the second new battery in a week. No other electrical maintenance has been done. I did give a lady a jump about a week and a half ago with my original 3yr old battery.
Comment: The shop said they did a electrical diagnostic.
Answer: Doing a parasitic drain test is quite simple, all you need is your multimeter (DMM).

Remember to place your DMM lead to 'A' and 'COM' , use flat screwdriver to close the latch on your bonnet, shut all doors and wait for about 30 min. for the vehicle to go fully into sleep.
If you see high current draw, let say 800 mA, start  pulling all the fuses one by one and watch any for any difference. If you pull a fuse that will drop the current to near 0 mA you have isolated the problem.
If neither fuse makes a difference, disconnect the heavy red cable leading to your alternator. A bad alternator diode will allow current to flow from the battery to the alternator when your engine is shut off. The winding in alternator will just sit there and draw current like a stalled electric motor causing a drain.
Alternators are not always fused, they will usually have fusible link only and thus not revealed problem when pulling fuses.
Hope that helps.
DO NOT start the car with this test in place starter current would fry your ammeter.
Answer: Many years ago I had a similar problem, it turned out to be the boot light was staying on causing a small current drain.
A very helpful garage mechanic climbed in the boot to find it.
Comment: Good solution, but the extra weight of a mechanic in your boot will hurt your MPG.

New battery dead after 48 hours


Is there a site where USA road traffic historical data would be available?

Question: Is there a site where USA road traffic historical data would be available? For example, whether the usual traffic jam on Bay Bridge in Maryland on Memorial day weekend was worse in 2012 vs. 2011?
Comment: Nationwide? I know of some city-specific historical data.
Comment: I know that AAA gives reports on WTOP about the level of traffic for major holidays.  They might be able to answer the specific example.
Answer: There are a lot of datasets related to road safety and general patterns.  Here you can find many of the National Highway and Department of Transportation datasets and ones specific to traffic in various locations.
(Disclaimer: I am the Evangelist for Data.gov.)
Comment: I have to say... looking at the API responses for that dataset makes me cry.
Answer: Departments of Transportation across the United States collect data for the Highway Performance Monitoring System requirements. The collected data is conflated and provided as the HPMS shapefile by the National Transportation Atlas Database, click on the year, select polyline, and download the HPMS shapefile. The HPMS shapefile data is the Annual Average Daily Traffic for most major roadways, however, it is merely a single value and does not provide diurnal data.
As part of the collection process to develop the HPMS, Departments of Transportation collect traffic via a continuously collecting permanent monitor or a certain window of time monitor. If you go to Maryland's DOT website for traffic counts, they allude to continous traffic count locations, they have 82 continuous automatic traffic recorders. Download the shapefile, see if the ATR is at the location in question, then send an information request for the database containing all the ATR data by hour. This process can be done for all of the states, but different DOT's have different policies on sharing this data, especially if you are not a resident of the state.
In Florida, you can find these continuously monitored site with hourly counts.
You can obtain samples of this data in Florida by going to the Florida Traffic Online site and looking for Red Dots, TTMS locations, and selecting continuous hourly counts. Each state is different on how they make this data available and how they go about counting it.
Nokia's Here Traffic, sold here by NavMart, provides 15 minute speed based probes of major roadways across the globe. Their historical data would be able to provide speed data to answer historical questions on how long it took to clear a bridge from congested speed to free flow speed.


How does css3 hardware acceleration work?

Question: Can anyone tell me how some css3 code (transitions/transformations) get hardware accelerated? In other words, what actually happens when the browser sees css3, what is the pipeline/process involved?
Answer: I don't know the details of the respective implementations, but I'd assume that browsers go through some 3D API to render pages - not just for CSS3 specific things, but for everything. A simple implementation of a transition would render both versions of the transition onto textures, then for each frame draw the second one on top of the first one with increasing opacity.
For transforms, it's as simple as changing the current display matrix (modelview matrix in OpenGL lingo) to produce the desired effect.
Some things that have been in CSS prior to version 3 can also benefit from hardware acceleration; for example, to render anti-aliased glyphs, one could render text onto a texture at, say, 8 times the desired size, then use trilinear filtering (which, again, you basically get for free on 3D hardware) to scale it back down.


Why did Django push for the slave to be eaten by the dogs?

Question: I love most of Django Unchained, but the part where Django pushes for the slave to be eaten by the dogs bothers me. It's a great movie about justice, except for this one scene where Django pushes for injustice.  Is there a reason why Django pushed for the slave to be fed to the dogs?
Answer: Django is a slave himself as he does not like what he is seeing, he still has to remember what he came to do, not to let his emotions get in the way of the task at hand. (Remember you can't save everyone.)
By letting Candy unleash the dogs shows that Django respects Candy and that he wants him to know that he does not fear him and that he needs to be taken seriously. He disagrees with what has happened but as the doctor said, Django is playing a part (acting), as he is to pose as the brains not a hot head slave out for revenge.
Now if Django stood up for the slaves it might have expose his cover, and may have tipped off Candy that he is there for another reason not just to buy a prized fighter. Candy could have even felt disrespected and never let them to the ranch.
Comment: Good answer. I'd also add that he also did partly out of spite. Because Dr. Schulz forces him to play such an evil black slave trader, he plays him especially evil. There's some dialog around that scene that also reinforces this.
Comment: True, Candy's trying to get a rise out of him, Which can be seen throughout the film. - One of the reasons that makes the film so compelling.
Comment: They were already saying they were looking for someone they weren't.  I'm kind of debating about it morally in my mind; part of me is inclined to think Tarantino just wanted more violence, but on the other hand, the dog scene does play a role later when Schultz can't get it out of his head and ultimately shoots Candie.  I appreciated how there was a legitimate reason for the violence in this movie.  Thanks for your helpful explanations.  :)
Comment: That makes sense expect for one thing.  Schultz offered to reimburse Candie in an inconspicuous way.  Django could have just as easily said "Well if he won his first three fights and had the boldness to run away, he seems to have potential!"
Comment: Yes but there not looking to actually buy a fighter. When the Doctor offers to reimburse Candy he only does it because he feels sick he can't stand watching what he is seeing. Lucky that Django was there to keep up appearances and explain that they would never pay for a pickintyy like that. They have to seem impartial to the act because they themselves want to get into the business they see in front of them, or so they say.
Comment: Oh duh.  I just remembered that their goal was to get to Candieland.  I guess it's just sad that the fighter had to die, but Django was a good husband.  So I'm comfortable now.  Thanks again.
Comment: Glad to help, NOTE: This scene we are talking about is very crucial to not only the film but the characters as well. Good question
Answer: Because he was undercover. If he wasn't racist they'd probably question why he was okay with slaves being beaten to death by eachother too
Answer: He doesn't really know he's going to unleash the dogs either. He says you don't mind seeing I do anything I see fit to him. Then django says he's your nigga. That's when candy unleashes the dogs.
Answer: Django had no personal relationship with the runaway slave and could stay in CHARACTER but he breaks CHARACTER when they're at Sugar land. That's how they get caught. They should have told Hildi about staying in CHARACTER.  That obvious relationship was learned because of it. I didn't see anything that would cause the widowed sister to say that Hildi was more interested in Django rather than the Doctor but it got Stephan thinking and watching. I wonder if the sister wasn't fishing for the Doctor for herself. I found it odd that the man of the manor would attend to kitchen issues instead of the lady of the house.  I also found it odd that the sister didn't stop the stripping of Hildi at the dinner table immediately. Everyone but Stephan and Calvin found it inappropriate & the sister had to yell to have it stopped. Why couldn't she address Stephan directly herself to stop promoting the stripping & remind the men that they could look at Hildi during after dinner drinks and discuss business then too. The household is overseen by the women not men. Business is men's work, the house is women's work. Biblical and accepted in America from the start. Only a man would write the 'discovery scene' happening at the dinner table in the 1800's, especially in the South. I do think they could have offered 200 for the runaway slave as he won he 3 fights and he could attend to the Mandingo cause you know uppity Django wasn't going to attend to the fighters needs himself. I think it was a good argument that would seem reasonable. But the story needed something really  horrific and true to the times. I myself was at least as uncomfortable as the Doctor with the scene. Hard to imagine that it even happened once let alone all the times it really did. Its sad that people still use the 'N' word after seeing the reality of the times & how awful it must be to have no rights & not even be cmonsidered a person.


What to do at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport during a long transit?

Question: I have a 12 hours transit at Amsterdam Schiphol airport but I have no visa to exit the airport, and all hotels inside are fully booked. Shops and restaurants are all closed by the time I arrive at the airport. Are there areas to relax and get some sleep? What else is there to do inside?
Comment: Related: http://travel.stackexchange.com/a/38141/22140
Comment: Schiphol's duty free is quite complete, so you will be able to spend some hours checking their stuff. Then, there are some very nice long, comfortable chairs to get some rest.
Answer: I suppose by this time OP has already finished his/her layover. For future visitors, here's another suggestion: Visit the Rijksmuseum at Schiphol at no charge! It is open daily from 6:00 – 20:00 and is located between piers E and F.
http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/see-and-do/things-to-do/museums-and-galleries/museums/rijksmuseum-amsterdam-at-schiphol-airport
Also see this list:
https://www.schiphol.nl/en/what-to-do-at-schiphol/relax/after-security/list/
Answer: I recently traveled through Schiphol and there are plenty of comfortable seating areas (well padded couches) and lots of power points so you should be very comfortable.
The specific area I had in mind was next to departures gate E08.
There are also automated relax/massage chairs that operate by coin which you can use to time out for a while.
There are 24 hours food and beverage shops, but strangely available in arrivals and not departure.
There are also meditation areas where you can go to relax (although I am not sure if these are open 24 hours).
So you should easily be able to spend 12 hours.
Answer: When I had a long layover at Schiphol I found the airport park a nice place to kill some time.  In particular you can actually get outside and have some fresh air, if the weather is nice.


My cPanel site was hacked - any advise on what to do?

Question: My cPanel site was hacked. The attacker has changed my cPanel password. How could he do that and how can I gain access to my site back?
Thanks.
Answer: The hacker could have obtained access by knowing your password or some exploit.
You should get in touch with the hosting provider via their customer support, they should be able to help.  Probably a good idea to change any passwords relating to this cpanel account, including email passwords.
Answer: the most likely cause is that at some time your antivirus was compromised.  You have had a virus/worm or similar placed on your computer.  These things can record your key strokes OR the person is watching on screen EVERYTHING you are doing, so when you enter in your passwords etc, they just watch and write it down (or store in files) they have ALL your files and can be on your computer going through all your files while you are on line and you will never know they are there.  There is only ONE way to truly get rid of them.
Once spyware is on your computer it is hidden, you will NOT find it and THEY will NOT allow yourantivirus to work.
First thing to do is disconnect from the internet= log off completely.  PHONE contact your banks etc and let them know before you get cleaned out.  Next, save all your files to an external source (disk, external hard drive etc) photos, text files etc.  when that is done you must REINSTALL your windows program (xp, vista, windows7 whichever you are using) after that you reinstall all your programs.
You MUST completely REMOVE your antivirus software (this will happen when you reinstall you main software (windows7 etc) and REINSTALL your antivirus software.
If you do not reload your main program and your antivirus, it (the virus) will be there waiting for you when you come back.
Once you have done this, reload all your other programs, reload all your files that you saved, THEN you can log back into the internet and then you MUST change all your passwords.
For your cpanel and other important places such as banking etc you should use a TEN digit password with 2 CAPITALS 2 lower case 2 numbers and 2 symbols the extra 2 can be anything you wish. so like this AAbb22^&?>  but mix them up. like this: 2bS*K$?c@P NEVER use anything that would make a WORD!!!
If you dont remove and reload your main computer program AND your antivirus, you will still have keyloggers or people watching everything you do.
This happened to me too.
Comment: Whilst some of this is true. I'm not sure it is the "most likely cause" of compromise of a remote server.