Do enlighted people cry? Did the Buddha ever cry?

Question: What is the Buddhist view on crying? I don't remember hearing or reading about the Buddha ever crying. Is crying a consequence of "lack of understanding" of the ultimate reality?
Answer: Crying can be caused due to both physical and mental reasons.
Physical reasons:

Irritation in the eyes.
Sickness affecting the eyes.
Side effects of strong medication or extremely spicy food.

Mental reasons:

Sadness(obvious sadness and the sadness disguised as compassion), depression, aversion to pain, fear
Clinging to happy/pleasant/joyful states of the mind.

Assuming that this question is aimed at the 2nd category, it is highly unlikely that a fully enlightened being would cry as they no longer become sad or cling to pleasant states of the mind.
Arhanths only have Kiriya Cittas. Those are of 3 types.
i. Consciousness turning to impressions at the five doors
(panca dvara-avajjana) accompanied by feeling of indifference(Upekkhā).
ii. Consciousness turning to impressions at the mind-door
(mana dvara-avajjana) accompanied by feeling of indifference(Upekkhā).
iii. Consciousness of the genesis of smile (hasitoppada
citta) accompanied by joy(Pīti).
Hasita(a smile which slightly reveals the tips of the teeth) is their reaction to joy. If they ever cried, there should be another called the Assuppada citta. But there isn't! :)
Comment: Yes, an enlightened being would have perfected the Upekkhā pāramī. Would that too make crying unlikely?
Comment: Updated reference
Comment: Actually, Arahaths have only Kiriya citta AFAIK. 2 of them are Uppekka and 1 of them has Joy. But that joy is not followed by clinging. Updated the answer.
Comment: The [reference](http://abhidhamma-studies.weebly.com/uploads/2/7/7/2/27729113/introduction_to_abhidhamma__silananda_brahmachari.pdf) doesn't contain the word "Kiriya". Which page of that PDF were you recommending as relevant?
Answer:
What is the Buddhist view on crying?

We must not pretend to be the Buddha, if tears come, we must respect that while investigating causes and conditions, using the moment as a teacher, to gather fresh insight. When true understanding is born, the tears will naturally dry up. New tears of compassion may form as one walks the path of the Bodhisattva.
Bodhisattvas have cried at seeing the fate of those in pain, and enlightened people like Jesus have shed compassionate tears.

I don't remember hearing or reading about the Buddha ever crying.

I can't recall any suttas that talk about the Buddha crying or not, but I am not a Tipitaka master. It is not explicitly one of the 18 Buddha attributes. One can surmise therefore that this is not considered a very important distinction.
The key aspect of a Buddha is volition. If he cried at all, it would not be meaningless.

Is crying a consequence of "lack of understanding" of the ultimate
  reality?

Yes and no - Involuntary crying of the nature humans often perform - where we try to hold back our tears, yet the circumstance overpowers us should not be the case for the Buddha. He has no remaining sankharas, no hidden traumas in the mind, no lack of control over his actions and perfect understanding of cause and effect.
If his crying served a purpose, then he may cry because it is Upaya.
Caveat: I am no Buddha, so I can't know for sure. It makes me a little uncomfortable to deal in the hypothetical.
Answer: An enlightened person who has achieved arahantship has put an end to mental fermentations, so how would they cry?
Fermentations which would cause one to cry, experience grief and sorrow wouldn't be there.
This means they could only pretend to cry or have the appearance of crying but not actually experience grief or sorrow.

"From craving springs grief, from craving springs fear. For one who is wholly free from craving there is no grief; whence then fear?" (Dhammapada, 216)

"Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains."
"But whoever overcomes this wretched craving, so difficult to
  overcome, from him sorrows fall away like water from a lotus leaf."
  (Dhammapada, 335-336)

Nibbana is the highest bliss, highest enjoyment, with fermentations (asavas) put to an end how can someone cry, be fearful, sorrowful, angry? Experiencing such an extreme form of enjoyment why would anyone cry?
Doubtless, fearless, sorrowless, angerless, calm, and happy walks the arahant.
Answer: Here is one theoretical answer.
The Buddha said that at the root of all virtue is gratitude.
Many believe people cry when they are sad. This could be true.
Have you noticed when people cry as they tell their story?
It is uncommon for tears as they say they lost their job, they lost their house, they lost their wife....but then they say..."...this person came..."...and they choke up..."...this person came and helped us when we needed it most..."...then the tears begin to flow.
Gratitude is the source of many tears.
If Buddha believed that gratitude was the source of all virtue - then certainly the Buddha had moments of profound gratitude...and thus tears.
Answer: Crying can happen because of many reasons but there has never been a record of an enlightened one crying because of sadness or any other mental discomfort.Because once you are enlightened you understand that there is no reason for sadness.sadness is purely a product of not being able to understand things according to Buddhas teachings.
Answer: from "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism":

[Enlightened master] Marpa was very upset when his son was killed, and one of his disciples said, "You used to tell us that everything is illusion. How about the death of your son? Isn't it illusion?" And Marpa replied, "True, but my son's death is a super-illusion."

from Sakka's Questions Sutta:

Grief is of two sorts, I tell you: to be pursued & not to be pursued.' Thus was it said. And in reference to what was it said? When one knows of a feeling of grief, 'As I pursue this grief, unskilful mental qualities increase, and skilful mental qualities decline,' that sort of grief is not to be pursued. When one knows of a feeling of grief, 'As I pursue this grief, unskilful mental qualities decline, and skilful mental qualities increase,' that sort of grief is to be pursued. And this sort of grief may be accompanied by directed thought & evaluation or free of directed thought & evaluation. Of the two, the latter is the more refined. 'Grief is of two sorts, I tell you: to be pursued & not to be pursued.' Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.
Comment: What do you mean by `super illusion`?
Comment: I believe Marpa was referring to the unity of the ultimate and the relative truths (realities).
Answer: Buddhas are people so yeah they probably cried sometimes during their life. Who knows after enlightenment, perhaps they are in emotional states where tears no longer come, or if they do have sadness, grief, gratitude, and other powerful emotions they reacted differently due to their wisdom and compassion. Or maybe they just cried and didn't worry about it so much. No offense, but the entire "deification" of Buddha(s) through pure scriptual reference is a bit absurd. My two cents are just cry, feel and don't be ashamed or think you have to get enlightened. Enlightenment doesn't mean you snuff out into bliss land, you still have a body, you still have to eat, sleep, and so on. As far as I know the Tathagatha never said he was a God, or Divine, just awake to truth. Argue all you want about mind streams and rebirth, etc. For me too much fancy thinking and dreaming of transformative experiences did not necessarily improve my daily practice. Quite the opposite, I found it a road block. During my study or mediation I have cried, walking meditation in the mountains, I have cried. Sitting at my desk and hearing Stevie Wonder singing and reminding me of my finite time with my daughter, I cried. What the heck is wrong with crying anyway. I feel better afterwards and I know why I cry so I'm glad I can have that normal and natural experience rather than fight it and stuff my emotions to be a mindful practitioner. Also, if by crying I am better able to handle my life and have understanding and compassion for others, than that seems healthy and productive as part of my practice. For me it's like learning to have feelings but not be blown about in the storm by them meaninglessly. Emotions are good teachers. Best of luck to you.


Following Your Passion/ Dreams against Hinduism?

Question: A lot of people are talking about following their passion and living the life they dream of. Living the life of freedom.
That makes complete sense to me as one should live life rather than making it count. Just want to know if it is accepted in Hinduism.
Answer: Leading a life as per one's own wishes, with complete disregard for the scriptural injunctions, is never recommended in Hinduism. Because it will ultimately lead to misery and destruction.

People belonging to the different classes and orders of life who are
  steadfastly devoted to the Laws proper to them enjoy the fruits of
  their deeds after death; and then, with the residue of those fruits,
  take birth again in a prosperous region, a high caste, and a
  distinguished family, with a handsome body, long life, deep vedic
  learning, and virtuous conduct, and with great wealth, happiness, and
  intelligence. Those who act to the contrary disperse in every
  direction and perish.
Gautama Smriti 11.31.29,30

So, there are clear merits in following the scriptural instructions while leading our lives and pursuing our goals and there are clear demerits in not doing so.
So, pursuing our dreams is good only if done in accordance with scriptural laws.
Leading a life where there is complete freedom to do anything one wants is called Swecchachara, and which is not recommended at all.
Comment: I have no intention to harm anyone in any manner. I want to do what I love (my passion), be successful and be kind and helpful with others. But please explain Swecchachara
Comment: Yes I know that you won't do that intentionally but pursuing ur passion may or may not be in accordance with Dharma.. Actually Hinduism won't allow one to act with complete freedom .. there are restraints imposed on everyone in every phase of life.. @Karmaisrealman
Comment: @Karmaisrealman Also see the meaning of swecchachara from here: http://spokensanskrit.org/index.php?tran_input=svecchAcAra&direct=se&script=hk&link=yes&mode=3
Comment: Doing what one likes in accordance with dharma... Is allowed right?
Comment: @Karmaisrealman Yes allowed  .. also allowed is not the correct word here .. recommended is .. Hinduism never forces one ..it just shows that this is right and that is wrong .. and now one can choose what to do
Answer: It depends on what my passions/dreams are.
The Sanatana Dharma speaks of four 'Purushartha'-s as the four types of fulfillment of life. They are : Dharma (Rightousness),Artha(Wealth), Kama (Desires) and Moksha (Liberation). For most people, the first three constitute the goals and hence the term 'Trivarga' is also used.
If Artha and Kama that we have passion for or dream of does not contradict Dharma, they are never condemned,In fact they are encouraged. All are not to lead a purely Spiritual Life. One can worship God for the fulfillment of the desires also, who is termed as 'Artharthi' in the Gita.
Please see the following verse of the Gita:

7.16 O Arjuna, foremost of the Bharata dynasty, four classes of people of virtuous deeds adore Me: the afflicted, the seeker of Knowledge, the seeker of wealth and the man of Knowledge.

A seeker of Wealth is 'Virtuouss' according to Sri Krishna, if he/she adores God even for acquiring wealth.
The following sloka of the Gita is also relevant here:

10.36 Of the fraudulent I am the gambling; I am the irresistible and of the mighty. I am excellene, I am effort, I am the sattva quality of those possessed of sattva.

So efforts and excellences are also expressions of the Lord. Also, He says in the Gita (7.11)

Among creatures I am desire which is not contrary to righteousness, O scion of the Bharata dyansty.

We get all the above from the lips of the Lord Himself.
To conclude:
Just our passions or dreams must not be against 'Dharma' ---that's all.
Answer: Human intellect (बुद्धि) is most of the time covered with desires that please the senses. So, being under the control of senses is the state of intellect (बुद्धि) of an average person.
For an average person, who is slave of senses, all dreams and passion are merely the projections of desires of senses. His free will is the will of senses, in disguise.
For example, one's desire to apply deodorant is cultivated by desire to have girls around one (cultivated by TV advertisements). Or, one might develop a passion for smoking, thinking it to be "cool".
Therefore, Hindu shaastras ask for clean and conquered mind (चित्त-निरोध) as a prerequisite for any practice (साधना).
Only after abandoning external stimuli and cultivators, you will be able to actually take a decision, that would be truly yours.
Now answering to your question, NO, not every person is qualifed/eligible to follow his passions or dreams.
Only after clean and conquered mind, one should develop a passion or dream (because only then his dream/passion would be truly his).
Extension (beyond answer) :-
A person is called "व्यक्ति" (vyakti) in Sanskrit, which etymologically means "expression".
Notice that a person is technically defined as an expression. So, it is the very nature of human being to express himself/herself. Passions/dreams/will all are instruments of expression.
A clean and conquered mind is the qualification that you require to have a true passion/dream/will, that is not a projection of your senses, but rather projection of your innate nature.
Comment: After regular meditation for 1-2 months I really found out my passion and yeah lot of misconceptions were removed. So I think I am pretty sure then.
Comment: @Karmaisrealman. that's good. Go ahead then.
Also please read my extended answer.
Answer: Hinduism teaches freedom from the senses, not freedom of the senses. Sri Krishna says in the Gita 16.23-24 (Swami Nikhilananda translator):

He who discards the injunctions of the scriptures and acts upon the impulse of desires attains neither perfection nor happiness nor the Supreme Goal.
Therefore let the scriptures be your authority in determining what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. Having learnt the injunctions of the scriptures, you should do your work in the world.

Chapter 16 goes into detail as to what actions are for benefit and which are not.
Answer: As per your dreams and passion, your way of life might come under the category of Tamsik or Rajsik pravatti (Way of life), but it is acceptable and allowed. Unless it is unlawful or illegal or criminal (you don't commit murder and call it your passion).

There are broadly 3 types of lifestyles or behaviors:
Satvik: a life spent for god, for the betterment of the community, or simple life without anger, hatred and too much joy.
Rajsik: a life spent on personal goals, worshipping gods for one's own desires, a materialistic life.
Tamsik: a life spent for greed, no regard for concepts of a god, possibly creating problems in society.

But all three are allowed.


Permissions on phpmyadmin

Question: I installed the phpmyadmin folder in the /var/www/html/ directory and I recently chmod 'd everything in the html directory to 777.
At first I realized that phpmyadmin won't run if you allow outside write access so I changed the permissions on that directory to 744.
I haven't found any good troubleshooting documentation on this problem but all I see in the error log is:

Permissions denied : access to /phpmyadmin/index.html.var denied

I made sure the owner is the same as the rest of the files in the html folder.
The rest of the site seems to work fine and it appears I can write to the database but I cannot access phpmyadmin.
Any help?
Answer: AH! Setting permissions to 755 on the entire /html directory fixed the problem. Found the answer in this forum: Yet another apache index html 403 problem

Permissions on phpmyadmin


In the sentence: "Drinking and driving IS dangerous", why does the verb "to be" need to be singular?

Question: In the sentence: "Drinking and driving is dangerous". Drinking and driving are both subjects and the word dangerous is the object (I think) but why do I have to use the verb to be in singular?
Comment: Are you trying to say that both drinking and driving are dangerous? Or are you saying that is dangerous to combine drinking and driving?
Answer: Because drinking isn't dangerous, and driving isn't dangerous – at least, not in comparison to the single activity "drinking and driving" – the two words are treated as a single unit.
This might happen a lot when we combine two or more elements in a sentence:

My favorite drinks are gin and tonic.

This could mean I have two favorite drinks: gin is a favorite drink, and so is tonic.

My favorite drink is gin and tonic.

This means that a gin-and-tonic is my favorite drink.
Comment: My favorite band is Guns and Roses.  :)
Comment: @geneSummons - Of the three examples added in the comments, I especially like your _soup and salad_ example – that is the one that is not a proper noun. And speaking of Guns and Roses, interestingly enough, I could say _Simon and Garfunkel **is** my favorite band_, or _Simon and Garfunkel **are** my favorite singers_, depending on if I am talking about them as a duo, or as two individual artists.
Comment: My favorite store is Crate and Barrel.  Soup and salad is my favorite lunch.
Comment: @J.R.: Or perhaps I like Garfunkel, Simon not so much :-)
Comment: @J.R not *could*, 'does'.  I.e  "This means I have two favourite ..."
Comment: @Sid - "Eating food and sleeping are important" sounds fine to me.
Comment: Duck and cover is a survival technique. Rock and roll is my favorite kind of music.
Comment: I feel like this answer does not get to the heart of the matter. The sentence "Eating food and sleeping are important" seems to have incorrect syntax, even though I am treating those activities separately and not as as a single unit. It feels necessary to clarify that they are important "needs" or "activities" to fix the syntax.
Answer: There, and is understood to mean "in combination with" hence the singular is appropriate.  They are not individually dangerous (if you don't drive recklessly and drink in moderation) and that's why you wouldn't say are.
Comment: Why does the same logic not work, e.g., in "Bonnie and Clyde is [sic!] dangerous", even if my intent is to express that they are only dangerous together, not individually?
Comment: Rendering it (temporarily) with "drinking-and-driving" hyphenated to make it plain it's a single thing, makes it more obvious.
Comment: @ViktorToth Walking on the freeway and closing your eyes is dangerous. Filling your house with methane and lighting a match is dangerous. It is not true the "Bonnie, together with Clyde, is dangerous" means the same thing—in this case, it is not saying Clyde is dangerous, but that Bonnie alone is, because people are not something that combine in the same way that *actions* combine. There is a contextual understanding of what is being expressed that rules this. Perhaps the phrase "at the same time" would be more helpful for you, as it won't work for "Bonnie, at the same time as Clyde".
Comment: @Viktor Toth:  {activity} **and** {activity} is hardly the same as {person} **and** {person}
Comment: @Tᴚoɯɐuo I don't know what the difference is between "together" vs. "in combination with". In any case, let's stick with "together": "Drinking, together with driving, is dangerous" vs. "Bonnie, together with Clyde, is dangerous". Yet "Drinking and driving is dangerous" vs. "Bonnie and Clyde are dangerous." The two words are combined in the exact same manner. In fact, I am wondering if there are any examples that do not involve the word "driving" (e.g., "drinking and driving is...", "texting and driving is..."), in the form of "something and something is"?
Comment: @Viktor Toth:  "together" is not the same as "in combination with".  You can say "That duo is lethal".
Answer: If you say:

Drinking and driving are dangerous.

this is the equivalent of saying:

Drinking is dangerous. Driving is dangerous.

By saying:

Drinking and driving is dangerous.

we mean that drinking to the state of being intoxicated, even mildly, and then driving while still intoxicated, is dangerous. However, the quote is much pithier than the explanation!
Answer: The combination of drinking and driving is a single object. Here we see one combination of two things. The common phrase 'drinking and driving is dangerous' is leaving out some clarifying words.
"Drinking and driving are dangerous" has a particular meaning: drinking is dangerous (perhaps) and driving is dangerous (perhaps), if you look at each singularly. The meaning of your sentence is that [the combination of] drinking and driving is dangerous.
An new example of 'is vs. are' with clearer context may help: Singing and rock climbing are challenging activities. Singing while rock climbing is a more challenging activity.
Answer: In standard English when a list of items is used as the subject of a verb then, that verb takes the plural even if all the items in the list are singular.
For example you would say
Gold, iron, copper and aluminium are metals rather than is metals (although some dialect have the opposite convention).
BUT 'drinking and driving' is a list but effectively a single compound noun. actually 'drunk driving' would be more grammatically correct but has been abandoned as the precise definition of 'drunk' is too ambiguous in this context and the phrase is used to reinforce the idea that drinking any alcohol before driving is dangerous even if you don't think you are 'drunk'.
This is different to saying 'drinking is dangerous, driving is dangerous'.
Comment: I have seen "drink driving", with or without a hyphen, used, mostly in UK publications. It's a bit better than "drunk driving" to my mind because it is more inclusive of slight impairment.
Comment: The expression "drunk drinking" is, to my way of thinking, less ambiguous. The participle *drinking* is just as ambiguous, if not more so. It could mean "drinking at the wheel" or "drinking while driving", which is still dangerous, but if you're drinking a coke, I doubt you'd risk losing your driver's license.
Comment: @Mari-LouA I definitely think you should stop drunk **drinking**! It looks like you've had enough already!
Comment: Of course, I meant "drunk **driving**" It's funny how some typos scream out loud, while others lie quietly in wait.
Answer: It is the singular act of drinking and driving that is being described as dangerous.  In describing multiple acts that are individually considered to be dangerous you would use the plural form of the verb.
For example:

Drinking and driving is dangerous and illegal.
Smoking and mountain climbing are dangerous and legal.
Answer: "Drinking and driving" is treated as one unit in this case.
"Drinking and driving" is dangerous
"X" is dangerous
Interestingly, in the UK the expression is "drink-driving", and it's still treated as a singular unit and can be placed right into the same structure:
"Drink-driving" is dangerous
Answer: This won't be a popular opinion, but this is precisely why I have always considered this sentence to be "wrong, but common enough to not be worth correcting", with the correct way to write them being via hyphens:

Drinking-and-driving is dangerous.

But fellow netizens will beat you up the moment you dare suggest this, because they point out that there is no Official English Grammar, and hence anything the general population feels like calling "correct English" on their Thursday of choice is, by definition, Correct English.


How can I use --servername and --remote in neovim?

Question: in vim I can do vim --servername foo and vim --servername foo --remote-silent bar.txt to open files in one instance of vim from several terminal windows (via tmux or whatever). How is the same thing achieved in NeoVim?
Answer: Neovim remote is a python script for controlling neovim processes. It has the vim style --servername and --remote options. This is what I use now for my multiple-terminal work environment.
Comment: It worth mentioning that this plugin does not work for Windows platform.
Answer: As far as I know vim has this feature because the GUI vim (gvim) uses the graphical X server. I am aware that non GUI Vim can also use the --servername argument but only when X11 is running and also by accessing to it. On the other hand, neovim has no graphical support; for that reason, I don't think that the --servername option can work (unless the option would have been fully rewritten in another way) since I would find strange to have a console program accessing the X11 server only for that purpose.
Answer: As mentioned, all of the clientserver features were removed in Neovim. This is because they use the X11 shared memory and Neovim removed X11 support.
However, if I use :help --servername in Neovim I end up in the documentation for
the serverstart() function:
serverstart([{address}])                                serverstart()
                Opens a named pipe or TCP socket at {address} for clients to
                connect to and returns {address}. If no address is given, it
                is equivalent to:
                        :call serverstart(tempname())
                $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS is set to {address} if not already set.
                                                        --servername
                The Vim command-line option --servername can be imitated:
                        nvim --cmd "let g:server_addr = serverstart('foo')"

This will make a socket in /tmp/; see :echo v:servername for the path. It's probably more useful to use a more deterministic address (e.g. serverstart('/tmp/nvim-remote'); although you'll probably want to wrap this in a function, as it won't append a number like Vim's --serverstart does if this already exists).
You can send commands with the RPC API. As far as I can find there is no way to send commands to this with just Neovim (meh). You'll need to install one of the API clients. For example with the reference Python API client (which is also what Neovim remote uses):
import neovim
nvim = neovim.attach('socket', path='/tmp/nvim-remote')
try:
    nvim.command(':e foo')
finally:
    nvim.quit()

You can probably send the same bytes with a echo ... >> /tmp/nvim-remove shell command, but the RPC API uses a somewhat non-trivial non-text protocol ("MessagePack RPC") and figuring out which bytes to send exactly was a bit too much effort for this post ;-)
See :help rpc for the full details on Neovim's RPC API.

N.B. :help remote.txt as well as many other help items (such as help server2client() and many more) still exists in Neovim, but none of that works. It looks like whoever removed this feature did a pretty sloppy job.
Comment: @TamaMcGlinn here is my little script: https://gist.github.com/dhazel/4858340f66e18cb7e12cd2ec8f8ca8d7 . Thanks for the tip about `nvr`. It's been several years since I looked at it.
Comment: @David could you share it?
Comment: The python program nvr solves this problem neatly (works on windows as well as linux): [github/mhinz/neovim-remote](https://github.com/mhinz/neovim-remote)
Comment: This is an *excellent* answer. It enabled me to write my own, simple, *windows compatible* version of neovim-remote for running in `:terminal`. Given this information it was wonderfully easy.
Answer: For Windows I propose the following solution:
Add the following line to you ginit.vim file:
silent execute "!echo " . v:servername . " > servername.txt"

Remark: The ginit.vim file is to be found or created in %LocalAppData%\nvim (e.g.: on Windows 10 for John Doo: C:\Users\JDoo\AppData\Local\nvim
Start nvim-qt using the following batch file:
@setlocal
@pushd %~dp0
@if not exist servername.txt goto nvimqt
@%~dp0\nvim.py %*
@if [%errorlevel%]==[0] goto :end

@:nvimqt
@%~dp0\bin\nvim-qt.exe %*
@del %~dp0\servername.txt

:end
@popd

That make use of the following Python script:
import os
import sys
import neovim

def main():
    servername_path = "servername.txt"

    if not os.path.isfile(servername_path):
        return 1

    with open(servername_path, mode="rt") as f:
        line = f.readline()
        servername = line.strip("\r\n ")

    try:
        nvim = neovim.attach("socket", path=servername)
    except Exception:
        print("Neovim not found")
        os.remove(servername_path)
        return 1

    if len(sys.argv) <= 1:
        return

    path = sys.argv[1]
    nvim.command(':e %s' % path)

    nvim.close()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ret = main()
    sys.exit(ret)

Comment: Oh great idea! Even in terminal this is much simpler for latex work. Just add tex auto command to save servername then nvr with the servername. This is in place of starting a nvim instance with a specific servername, which appears to also conflict with built in lsp server stuff. (Maybe the latter is a bug.)
Answer: An update to the answers. Neovim now supports some limited use of --remote and friends. I think more will be coming in the future. See https://neovim.io/doc/user/remote.html


"Connect to outlook" needs to be removed !

Question: We have a requirement to remove the menu "Connect To Outlook "  from the "Actions" . If anyone has come across such requirement please guide me on this.
i dont wanna do it via DefaultTemplates.ascx coz it will be effected across server.
Comment: Please help !! :)
Answer: You can use the Toolbar Manager from here: http://features.codeplex.com/releases/view/2502
It gives you granular control of all of the SharePoint Toolbar per list.
Answer: The ideal solution would be to disable it using a SharePoint Feature with a HideCustomAction element. But I tried this a few years back with no luck - hiding this action was not possible this way. We ended up patching the core.js file to get rid of it. But beware that this is an ugly work-around that service packs and CU's might overwrite again. I have not tried the HideCustomAction with SP2 - maybe it is possible now to do it right?


Proper glow plug operation

Question: Are glow plugs supposed to stay on after the engine has started to help with the firing of the first few revolutions?
Answer: Actually with modern engines, they can and do come on after startup. I think the reasons are spelled out fairly well in this article on Engine Builder Magazine:

The government wanted to reduce the amount of diesel hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide levels being emitted from diesel engines. Now, this is where the importance of the glow plugs comes in. Not only do the glow plugs cycle to aid the engine during cold weather start up, but also after the engine is cranked – they will continue to cycle to reduce the amount of start-up emissions. This helps reduce the smoke that most diesel engines produce when being cranked on cold mornings.

To reiterate, they come on after engine startup to reduce emissions and smoke. The combustion chamber will not immediately come up to temperature after startup. It takes a while for things to get heated, like the heads, cylinder walls, and most importantly, the cooling system. Once these things are warmed up, emissions are where they should be and the glow plugs don't need to come on anymore.
Answer: No. Glow plugs are used only during colder temps. Once the motor starts the combustion process has begun and no longer requires additional heat.
Like fusion once it starts it ignites itself!
Comment: Don't quote me, but as far as I know that is wrong. Glow plugs stay on a little longer (seconds, probably) after the car has started and the plug light went off to make the engine work smoother and not die. Can anyone confirm?
Comment: Maybe seconds... But not very long... They should go off...

Proper glow plug operation


New loop vs widget

Question: So, I have a sidebar that I'm going to list all posts in, I could just use a widget.
But is it proper to use a new loop instead of a widget, or preferential?
Comment: Widgets and loop are not comparable, it's like saying should I use a picnic basket or a car.
Comment: I wish I could award a bounty to that comment @Wyck
Answer: You should always use widgets when you need to add any kind of content to the sidebar. The reason is very practical - once the project is over the owner of the site will not need to contact you just because he wants to put a banner before your "loop", and even during development it easier to just move a widget then edit your code when needed.
Widget are also reusable in all the sidebars of the site, and if you pack them as a plugin, or in separate file, it is easy to reuse them in other projects.
Many advantages for just a little amount of extra work.

New loop vs widget


Using SO / SF / SU to promote your products?

Question: See this question: https://superuser.com/questions/3049/must-have-android-applications/3284#3284
I answered twice with links to my own Android products that fully met the criteria of the question, and they got downvoted. I do make it clear that I am the developer, and I post regularly about other things too. This is kind of advertising, but they are my favorite. Is this kind of behavior discouraged at SO / SF / SU?
Comment: For references to astroturfing, see http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8323/astroturfing-on-stack-overflow
Comment: Do you know why they were down voted?  Maybe, and I hate to suggest it, but it is possible other folks don't like your product as much as you do?
Comment: @Stu - I agree, but this post is fairly low - traffic and my posts are the only downvoted ones. I am not denying that that may be a cause, I just post here because I would like to know if this is accepted in the community?
Answer: I think your examples are acceptable as long as you declare your bias. Presenting them as applications you 'found' would be poor behaviour and likely to earn down votes...It would also help if you otherwise were a trusted and helpful member of the community.  Jon Skeet would be forgiven a plug for his c# book because he is very helpful to every C# developer in the community, whereas someone who signed up to plug a book would not and would be marked as spam
EDIT: To the posters saying it is astroturfing. It isn't. He declared his bias in the questions and is not trying to pretend it's an organic recommendation. Given the nature of the Question I think his answer is acceptable, more so that he came here to draw attention to what he did.
Comment: Seriously, why vote this down? Leave a comment if you disagree.
Answer: You should probably write in the answer why you like them so much. If you don't say why you like those programs, why would anyone believe you?
If it's just because you wrote the programs, you should probably delete the answers.
You have to remember that your not just continuing a conversation, you are ending it. Saying you like your own programs, doesn't really end a conversation real well.
While you are writing an answer, try to think about what someone reading it would ask you. Then answer that question. Either by adding another paragraph, or editing what you already have. Keep doing that until you can not come up with any more questions.
Comment: I added some more information to the answers...
Answer: I think it would depend on the context and the user's other activity... which sounds vague and woolly, and I apologise...
If an account exists primarily to spot questions related to their product, that is astroturfing and will probably be deleted (post and/or user). However, occasional on-topic posts are probably OK - but the community may decide it is spam anyway, depending on the context. For example, I have no qualms about recommending one of my tools when it is appropriate (but it is open source, so I'm not out to profit by plugging it).
Beyond that; adverts are available on the site.
Making an association explicit is a good idea; people will see through you anyway...
Answer: You're probably better off not doing that. If it wasn't on SU, i'd flag them as spam.
It'd be one thing if you were answering the question, "Where can I find an app for Android that'll let me download stuff off of YouTube". But if these "what's your favorite" threads become nothing but a vessel for self-promotion, then expect to see them nuked - and as an early participant, you'll be partially to blame for having ruined it for everyone else.
Answer: If you make it look like an advertisement, that's a very quick way to have people flag your post as spam and get you to lose 100 rep. I'm not saying that's the preferred behavior, but that is just what happens.
Comment: Nooooooooooooooooooo........ not my rep


IP Geocoding Data Sources and/or APIs

Question: I am looking for IP address to geocoding data sources and/or APIs. Open to any formats, and the main concern is the quality, depth, and freshness of the data.
Answer: There are three sources that may be helpful:

The answer on Stack Overflow on how to Geocode an IP Address
Free GEOIP has a RESTful API for this specific task
The Google Map API
A geolocation XML API from PInfoDB
Comment: Interesting, but I don't think the Google Map API and IPInfoDB qualify as open data :-)
Comment: They seem (but I am not 100% sure) to use data from http://lite.ip2location.com/databases . These databases come either with a commercial license or with a free license. The free license says `The LITE edition is an open-source version of database with limited accuracy & number of records compares to commercial release. It is free for personal or commercial use with attribution required`. So I was wrong, IPInfoDB seems to qualify as open data indeed :-)
Comment: PInfoDB requires registration for use of the API, but for the same reasons many sites do in collecting metrics, rather than charging for the service. I included Google Map API only as a secondary component that may help @blunders to map the results of any earlier query.
Answer: For a project I use the GeoLite City download from MaxMind. The license is "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License."
This file is usually updated every month, so I have a script that checks if the file has been updated and only downloads/unzips if it has:
wget -N http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

I choose the binary file, and not the CSV, because there is a nice python library to load this data and then do the lookups: pygeoip. For thousands of IP addresses, I found this process much faster than sending each IP address to an external web API.
A python snippet to load the IP table and then do a lookup:
import pygeoip
gi = pygeoip.GeoIP('GeoLiteCity.dat')
print gi.record_by_addr('18.104.22.168')

provides a JSON output like this:
 {'city': u'Mountain View', 'region_name': u'CA', 'area_code': 650, 'time_zone': 'America/Los_Angeles', 'dma_code': 807, 'metro_code': 'San Francisco, CA', 'country_code3': 'USA', 'latitude': 37.41919999999999, 'postal_code': u'94043', 'longitude': -122.0574, 'country_code': 'US', 'country_name': 'United States', 'continent': 'NA'}

Answer: (Just to add details to the second list item in Jeanne's answer)
freegeoip.net is a community-built IP geocoding platform.
Database files are downloaded automatically by the updatedb script from the blog.freegeoip.net domain and according to their blog the data actually comes from the Geolite databases which are disctributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
In addition:

The engine itself is open source
There is even a free hosted API (with hourly limits)
Answer: Three more IP geolocation APIs/Datasets I can suggest:
www.ip2location.com  - free version for non-commercial use
www.hostip.info - crowdsourced dataset and API
dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/geolite/ - free IP geolocation dataset

IP Geocoding Data Sources and/or APIs


Should we merge tags employee-stock-options and employee-share-plan

Question: Should we merge [create synonyms] the tags employee-stock-options and employee-share-plan, or is there enough distinction to keep both. I guess we can create a distinction, but would need more appropriate definitions for both the tags and undertake a re-tagging exercise for the set of questions.
Comment: BTW thanks for starting this discussion - I don't have a strong view but happy to help out with any cleanup. Apart from creating a synonym we can also (with mod powers) explicitly merge one tag into another which silently removes the old one.
Answer: When looking at plan that allow employees to purchase share of the company they fall into several groups:

shares vs options
publicly owned companies vs private companies

The placement in this grid determines tax implication, put it also determine what happens if a person leave the company, what happens to their shares. Other tags the exit: retricted-stock , option-exercise and options allow the question to be properly binned.
I don't think the two tags make it clear to a questioner what tag(s) are appropriate for their question. So I vote to merge them.
Comment: @blm Could you post an answer and draw up some description for both the tags. We can then evaluate how many questions we can tag distinctly
Comment: I don't think I agree. Just based on the tags themselves (because employee-share-plan doesn't have a description, and employee-stock-options' description is weak), I'd say they aren't equivalent, and that employee-share-plan is a strict superset of employee-stock-options (and restricted-stock for that matter).
Answer: the above answer (@mhoran_psprep) dices some of the distinction, though in addition to the above, I suggest additional consideration:

employee-share-plan typically is offered to all employees either pre- or after- tax, depending on the plan after meeting certain requirements: typically minimum length of employment . Somewhat similar to health benefits, etc.
employee-stock-options are typically not offered to all, but to a few as compensation and as reward for superior performance. In addition, employee-stock-options are not to my knowledge, available in a tax deferred plan.
In summary, the former is the employee's choice, and the latter is the choice of the employer; therefore, I believe the separation is important.
Comment: Agreed. The question is more whether someone coming in for the first time can make this distinction and are the questions being tagged rightly or randomly
Answer: "Stock options" and "Share plans" typically have very different risk profiles and tax treatments.  Exercising a stock option can be done in a way that does not require the employee to invest their own cash.  Many stock purchase plans allow the employee to spend cash to purchase stock at a discount.  This up-front investment reduces the number of employees for whom the investment is affordable and prudent.
I think there should be two separate tags.  Perhaps we need to review the tags, to make sure that individual questions are tagged appropriately.


Problem with camera orientation in motion tracking

Question: sorry for my English, I write from Italy. I'll try to explain my problem.
I'm tracking a footage with a solver error 0.2973. When I try to set the floor, the orientation of the camera is wrong (see screenshot).

So I tried to manually orient the camera, but even if well oriented respect to the xyz axes, geometry is incorrect as you can see from the screenshots below (the selected marker appears to be on the same plane but it is lower).

The video was recorded by a roof of a house so much higher than the road. It seems that Blender is not able to recognize this height and set the floor in a wrong point of view.
Can someone help me solve this problem?
Thank you
Comment: Can you include a google drive or similar link to your .blend file/video?
Comment: Use one of the side views in orthogonal view (numpad 5) to reorient the scene. Read: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10698/correct-tracked-camera-orientation/10708#10708
Comment: Also related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28862/how-to-align-the-camera-in-a-solved-motion-tracked-scene/28888#28888
Comment: Hi and thanks for answers.
I oriented the camera just like that. The problem is that by rotating the camera (and all the markers), all track point that before the rotation were on the floor, after the rotation are located under the floor.
Here is the link to download the project and the footage:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkNHGG_7aD9OlxzO_OZ0KU3scYf2
Answer: The problem with your shot is that there is no parallax information. The camera is just panning, but there is no displacement. In other words the camera is just rotating but stationary in the same place. The normal camera solver cannot reconstruct the distance to the tracked points to do a proper 3d solution on this kind of shots.

You need to solve as tripod.

Note that when you do that there is no way to get a proper reconstruction of the space in 3D. The tracking points are then projected in a spherical way around the camera.

Tripod solve will not give you real 3D information.
From the wiki:

tripod can be used for footage where the camera does not move and only
  rotates. Such footage can't be tracked with a generic solver approach,
  and it's impossible to determine the actual feature points in space
  due to a lack of information. So this solver will solve only the
  relative camera rotation and then reproject the feature points into a
  sphere, with the same distance between feature and camera for all
  feature points.

To integrate 3D elements into the shot you're going to need to know the actual lens/sensor used and try to calculate the camera height manually.
Comment: Further reading: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42329/how-can-i-get-better-results-when-doing-camera-motion-tracking/42332#42332
Comment: Thanks, I figured that the problem was due to no parallax information.
Unfortunately I had also tried to solve as tripod, but the result was about the same.
Thank you all for the replies.
Comment: Blender has no way of guessing if the points are closer or further away with no parallax.
Comment: try using blam to determine the proper perspective. https://github.com/stuffmatic/blam
Comment: I think this kind of problem could be solved by taking extra footage with the same camera, going around some of the tracking points, that is, walking physically near and around those tracking points. Then add the clip next to the original one, solve with all the new information, then just keep the desired original clip.


What is the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning?

Question: These two terms seem to be related, especially in their application in computer science and software engineering.

Is one a subset of another?
Is one a tool used to build a system for the other?
What are their differences and why are they significant?
Comment: You should accept an answer, so that the best answer is on top of the others. In my view, the best answer is also the most upvoted one, i.e. [this one](https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/53/2444), which I think you should accept, as it's objectively correct and simple. However, I've changed [this answer](https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/2233/2444) to make it even more valuable too, so you may consider it too. Take a look at https://ai.stackexchange.com/help/someone-answers for more info about how to act when you get answers to your own question.
Comment: You can also read the related questions [What is machine learning?](https://ai.stackexchange.com/q/12558/2444) and [What is artificial intelligence?](https://ai.stackexchange.com/q/7838/2444).
Answer: Machine learning has been defined by many people in multiple (often similar) ways [1, 2]. One definition says that machine learning (ML) is the field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed.
Given the above definition, we might say that machine learning is geared towards problems for which we have (lots of) data (experience), from which a program can learn and can get better at a task.
Artificial intelligence has many more aspects, where machines may not get better at tasks by learning from data, but may exhibit intelligence through rules (e.g. expert systems like Mycin), logic or algorithms, e.g. path-finding).
The book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach shows more research fields of AI, like Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Probabilistic Reasoning or Philosophical Foundations.
Answer: Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence. Roughly speaking, it corresponds to its learning side. There is no "official" definitions, boundaries are a bit fuzzy.
Answer: Artificial intelligence
According to the book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (section 1.1), artificial intelligence (AI) has been defined in multiple ways, which can be organized into 4 categories.

Thinking Humanly
Thinking Rationally
Acting Humanly
Acting Rationally

Figure 1.1 (of the same book) contains 8 definitions (by renowned people like Bellman, Winston or Kurzweil).

Each box contains 2 similar definitions (i.e. both fall into the same category). These definitions vary along 2 dimensions. The definitions in the top row are concerned with thought-processes and reasoning, while the ones in the bottom are concerned with behaviour. The definitions on the left are associated with human intelligence, while the ones on the right with an idealized version of intelligence, which the authors of the AIMA book call rationality. So, for example, the definitions in the top-left corner are based on thinking humanly, while the definitions on the bottom-right corner are based on acting rationally.
There is also a definition of AI by John McCarthy, who is one of the official founders of the AI field in 1956.

It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.

Machine learning
There have been also multiple (similar) definitions of machine learning (ML). For example, Tom Mitchell, in section 1.1. of his book Machine Learning, defines machine learning as follows.

A computer program is said to learn from experience $E$ with respect
to some class of tasks $T$ and performance measure $P$, if its performance at tasks in $T$, as measured by $P$, improves with experience $E$.

What is the difference between AI and ML?
ML is a subfield of AI, which is data-oriented (or experience-driven). AI is not just ML, but it's also composed of Natural Language Processing, and other subfields.
Answer: The machine learning is a sub-set of artificial intelligence which is only a small part of its potential. It's a specific way to implement AI largely focused on statistical/probabilistic techniques and evolutionary techniques.Q
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is 'the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence' (such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages).
We can think of AI as the concept of non-human decision makingQ which aims to simulate cognitive human-like functions such as problem-solving, decision making or language communication.
Machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is basically a learning through doing by the implementation of build models which can predict and identify patterns from data.
According to Prof. Stephanie R. Taylor of Computer Science and her lecture paper, and also Wikipedia page, 'machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence and it's about construction and study of systems that can learn from data' (like based on the existing email messages to learn how to distinguish between spam and non-spam).
According to Oxford Dictionaries, the machine learning is 'the capacity of a computer to learn from experience' (e.g. modify its processing on the basis of newly acquired information).
We can think ML as computerized pattern detection in the existing data to predict patterns in future data.Q

In other words, machine learning involves the development of self-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence involves developing systems or software to mimic human to respond and behave in a circumstance.Quora
Answer: Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence, as the following diagram (taken from this blog post) illustrates.
Answer: Many terms have 'mostly' the same meanings, and so the differences are just in emphasis, perspective, or historical descent. People disagree as to which label refers to the superset or the subset; there are people who will call AI a branch of ML and people who will call ML a branch of AI.
I typically hear Machine Learning used as a form of 'applied statistics' where we specify a learning problem in enough detail that we can just feed training data into it and get a useful model out the other side.
I typically hear Artificial Intelligence as a catch-all term to refer to any sort of intelligence embedded in the environment or in code. This is a very expansive definition, and others use narrower ones (such as focusing on artificial general intelligence, which is not domain-specific). (Taken to an extreme, my version includes thermostats.)
Answer: In simple words, Artificial intelligence is a field of science that is trying to mimic humans or other animals behavior.
Machine Learning is one of the key tool/technology behind Artificial intelligence.
Answer: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two very hot buzzwords right now, and often seem to be used interchangeably. They are not quite the same thing, but the perception that they are can sometimes lead to some confusion. So I thought it would be worth writing a piece to explain the difference.
Machine learning is a core sub-area of artificial intelligence; it enables computers to get into a mode of self-learning without being explicitly programmed. When exposed to new data, these computer programs are enabled to learn, grow, change, and develop by themselves.
Answer: First of all, I encountered the term MachineLearning much more in my Business Intelligence classes than in my AI classes.
My AI Professor Rolf Pfeifer would have put it that way: (after having a long speech about what intelligence is, how it can be defined, different types of intelligence, etc.). ML is more static and "dumb", unaware of its physical environment and not made to interact with it, or only on an abstract basis. AI has a certain awareness of its environment and interacts with it autonomously, making thereby autonomous decisions with feedback loops.
From that point of view, Ugnes Answer would be probably the closest.
Besides that, of course, ML is a subset of AI.
Machine Learning is not real intelligence (imho), it's mostly human intelligence reflected in logical algorithms, and as my Business Intelligence Prof would put it: about data and its analysis. Machine Learning has a lot of supervised algorithms which actually do need humans to support the learning process by telling what's right and what's wrong, so they're not independent. And once they're applied, algorithms are mostly static until humans readjust them.
In ML you mostly have black boxes designs and the main aspect is data. Data comes in, Data gets analyzed ("Intelligently"), Data goes out, and Learning most times applies to a pre-implementation/Learning fase. In most cases ML doesn't care about the environment a machine is in, it's about data.
AI instead is about mimicking human or animal intelligence. Following my Prof's approach, AI is not necessarily about self-consciousness but about interaction with the environment, so to build AI you need to give the machine sensors to perceive the environment, a sort of intelligence able to keep on learning, and elements to interact with the environment (arms, etc.). The interaction should happen in an autonomous way and ideally, as in humans, learning should be an autonomous, ongoing process.
So a drone that scans fields in a logical scheme for colour patterns to find weeds within crops would be more ML. Especially if the data is later analyzed and verified by humans or the algorithm used is that a static algorithm with built-in "intelligence" but not capable of rearranging or adapting to its environment.
A drone that flies autonomously, charges itself up when the battery's down, scans for weeds, learns to detect unknown ones and rips them out by itself and brings them back for verification, would be AI...


My 12 year old daughter just smiles when we're trying to talk to her after she gets in trouble

Question: My daughter is 12 years old. When she gets in trouble or we(parents/teachers/coaches) are trying to talk to her seriously, she has a smile/smirk on her face. She looks like she does not care what we are trying to tell or her show her. Can it be a nervous reaction or just disrespect? How can I help her to overcome this or teach her this is not the right way to react?
Comment: You should look at the comments of this question http://parenting.stackexchange.com/q/12261/23413 as apparently, smiling in high stress situations involuntarily is part of human natural instinct.
Comment: Also, is your goal to have her learn from the discipline and change her behavior, or to stop smirking?  What if she smirks yet still has the positive behavioral change? If she does not have the desired positive behavioral change, I would ignore her smiling and let her experience consequences for what caused you to want to talk to her in the first place.
Comment: Question lacks context.
Comment: People do like to feel in control of their lives/all situations, so I am going to lean towards it being a defensive mechanism due to looking bad because of being corrected.

 I would like to know how you or the teachers/coaches/etc... are approaching the discipline? Is it calm and constructive? Demeaning? What happens if she gets pulled aside into a private area for the correction?
Comment: What you see on her face may not reflect what's happening in her brain. You need to look for other indicators of how she feels.
Comment: Very anecdotally, there is even a specific word for this behaviour (basically showing that it is not too uncommon) on Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smerve&defid=7323299
Answer: There are so many possible reasons for you to see a smile/smirk that there is no single answer.

she could be smiling because she feels superior and is uninterested in what you are saying
she could be very nervous or upset and the outward expression of this is a smile
she could be happy you are paying attention to her so is smiling
etc

What is important is to try and understand what the smile means - to her. She may not even be aware she is doing it, but communication will be key here.
Answer: I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but I recall smiling when I got into arguments with my mom. The earliest time I can remember it happening is when I was nine, and the most recent time I can remember it happening is about a month ago(I'm 16). I don't feel as though I have any control over it. I usually have to bite my cheek to stop myself, because I find the situation thoroughly embarrasing, otherwise. I'm not sure why I respond to anger in such a way, but I do feel that it is important to mention that I suspect that I have Asperger's Syndrome, so I may respond to things differently than others. I hope this helped. Thank you.
Answer: There is very little to go on here, so one would have to make assumptions.  You seem to suspect that her smiling might be a form of disrespect.  If it is a smirk, then it probably or possibly is exactly that.  So...
If what is going on is that your discipline of her bad behavior is limited to talking to her and trying to teach her through words only, then she may have figured out that there really are no bad consequences to her bad behavior.  If that is the case, she can stand there and laugh internally at your attempts to guide her away from behavior which you deem "bad", when she knows there is no reason for her to stop doing what she wants to do, just because there is some background noise in the room.
That may sound harsh, but that could be exactly what is behind a kid smirking at their parents' attempts to teach them only with words.  Sooner or later, your child will find out that bad behavior is deemed "bad" because it usually carries bad consequences.  Failure in school, social life, jobs, trouble with the law, these are the things that a kid who ignores discipline could be heading into in their later life.  It is our jobs as parents to teach them that reality by instituting bad consequences for bad behavior in their childhood, where we can control the outcome to be instructive rather than destructive.
Of course, it could be that you are already doing this, and I am off base here.  If so, ignore my answer.  But if not, put in place strong, negative consequences for bad behavior, including smirking at you when you are talking to her.  Call
her on it - very bluntly tell her what smirking communicates and demand to know what she is trying to communicate by it.  If the answer does not satisfy, then put in place those bad consequences.
With my kids, loss of privileges, grounding, earlier bedtimes, and very rare spankings have worked wonders.  Mind you, those negatives for bad behavior happen in the context of ten times more positives, encouragement, praise and affection for bad behavior.  Those negatives also happen in the context of daily (multiple times a day) affirmation of my love and appreciation for them, constantly communicating to them how freaking awesome I think they are while also communicating that I will love them till the day I die, even if they were to turn into total douchebags, which seems, frankly, totally impossible.
Today, my kids (four of them) range in age from 11 to 19.  They are obedient, very respectful kids who do extremely well in school (straight A's) and are held up as examples by their teachers and other adults.  When we ask them to do something, they usually answer with the typical southern "yes sir", and "yes ma'am" to my wife, but they are also very free with their expressions of affection to us.
Spend time with her, love her, communicate tons of positive affirmation to her.  But at the end of the day, also, do not tolerate that smirk if you even suspect that it is a sign of disrespect.
Answer: I as an adult and remember doing this I did it because I would become nervous and or scared of getting in trouble that I  would smirk and not know I did this till my parents said something I was doing it Because I don't like to cry in front of people. My grandson actually has ISS for as the school says he showing disrespect but he said he doesn't realize he is doing it. He has had a very bad year he lost his mom at age 10 been a year now. He won't cry so he smiles do not to cry. Every child and every person is different and deals with life tragedies. I will be homeschooling him starting in Jan. I think people are so judgmental about what is right n wrong.
Answer: I think that MAYBE another possible way to get "in touch"with her, is to show interest in what she has to say...ask questions, ask from her to develop her impressions, ideas, what ever! Go on like this for some time, until you feel that it creates a connection, you are bound to each other. Once this is done, at some point later, you can start to exchange...
Answer: Its a way to show she is bigger than you, if you smile while you are telling her off it will be pointless for her to keep smiling.


Employer did not withhold taxes on last 3 pay periods (W2 employee)

Question: I was a W2 employee at a startup. For the first several months of my employment my employer withheld taxes normally. Later, the company experienced financial problems and was unable to make payroll four times. Eventually, the company wrote me a check for the gross salary for three pay periods; no taxes were withheld. This gross salary was not included in the W2 I received today. Do I report this as 1099 income, as "Other Income" on line 21 of Form 1040 Schedule 1, or something else?
Answer:
Eventually, the company wrote me a check for the gross salary for
  three pay periods; no taxes were withheld.

At first this looks like you should treat this as 1099 income, but your employer can't just switch you from W-2 to 1099 becasue they want to.

This gross salary was not included in the W2 I received today

Important caveat: if they paid you the triple check  in 2019 even if the work was done in 2018, that money would not appear on your W-2 until one was issued in January 2020.
Regarding the lack of withholding, you should contact the state government division of labor for guidance, you  should also report this issue to the Federal department of Labor but they might not be investigating during the budget shutdown.
Miss-classifying an employee as a contractor is a violation of the law. The government takes that seriously. They also have labor laws regarding frequency of pay.
The financial issues the company is having that delayed the paying of 4 paychecks was a sign they were in trouble.
Now that they have issued a check for 3 paychecks worth of gross pay shows their problems haven't gone away. They may be in debt to their payroll service, or they are behind in paying sending their withholding to the federal and state governments.
In addition your benefits are in danger. If they were withholding money for health insurance, they may not have paid the coverage bill. They also may not be honoring any paid time off or other benefits.
Start looking for another job, this one might not be around for long.
Comment: It's worth considering the case that the OP crossed the $128,400 threshold for 2018, after which social security tax is no longer withheld as the maximum tax has been reached.
Answer: Yes, this is effectively 1099 income because it sounds like the employer is having trouble paying Paychex or whoever runs his pay stubs.
This is about a 7% penalty for you, as you'll need to pay his half of FICA.  Normally FICA is not something you document on your own 1040, your half is withheld and he just pays his half.
However you'll need to look into a 1040-ES form for paying that.  You just missed a payment deadline on Jan. 15 but IRS says that's fine if you file your taxes by Jan. 30 and include a check.


Where can I see the database upgrade script?

Question: I want to see which indices were supposed to be created in the last upgrade I ran because I get a status report message saying that some indices are missing, but when I click "Update Indices" I get an error saying "DB Error: already exists". So I'm pretty sure some of the indices are missing, but not all of them. So I want to manually create only the missing ones.
Answer: There are a number of other threads around this issue and you may find the specific advice you need if you read through them eg
How to find and/or fix missing indices?
or this one
Missing indices status after upgrading to CiviCRM 4.7.21 on WordPress 4.8


Why will Unity have a Global Menu OS X style?

Question: Please explain to me why it was choosen,
was it due to ubuntu copying Mac OS X or some other factor(s)?
Answer: The announcement lists reasons and design goals. It's named the Application Menu (as global menu was the name of an older project).
For testing plans and more technical details see this page.
Answer: Mainly to save on space since it targeted towards netbooks. Read more about the rationale here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383
Answer: To help take advantage of the limited vertical space netbooks (and widescreen resolutions) have they are integrating the menu bar into the top panel.
Also with Mac OS X you have to bring focus to an application (usually by clicking it) to switch the menu to that application, but with Unity you will be running applications full screen so there is no confusion as to what application's menu you are accessing.


How can I disable Chrome's incognito mode without rooting Android?

Question: Is there a way to disable Incognito Mode in Chrome without rooting? My phone is running Android Lollipop.
Comment: Is there a good reason  why would you want to  disable Incognito mode?
Comment: @Firelord: Maybe the asker wants to install a web-filtering app such as Qustodio or Norton Family. Incognito mode tends to interfere with the proper operation of such apps. (The workaround is to upgrade to a device which can run Android 6.0 "Marshmallow" or CyanogenMod 13 or higher. Then Qustodio will work even when the user has enabled Chrome's incognito mode.)
Comment: Dear Cassie: On Android 5.x "Lollipop" and below, what you want may be impossible. Instead, install some monitoring software which lets you find out what your kids do in incognito mode. (Not all monitoring software has this capability.) Then tell your kids that you've done so.
Answer: Disclaimer
This answer is pointless.  Once you've read the end of my answer, you will see why.
My answer
I personally have tried Qustodio's "Block Incognito Browsing" feature.  (I was using a phone running Android 4.1.2 and a recent version of Google Chrome.)
It didn't work at all.
Incognito browsing still worked perfectly, and was not blocked or even hindered whatsoever.  Even after an hour or more, Qustodio had no idea that I was using Chrome's incognito mode.
In a help center article, Qustodio LLC does admit:

Please note that our incognito blocking feature is still experimental.

If you want to prevent incognito browsing, I see a few options:

You could lock down the device completely (though this is almost impossible to do correctly) and then to make sure that the only browser which the user can access is a browser which is incapable of incognito browsing.
Or you could use Norton Family's incognito detection.  If Norton Family alerts you that incognito has been used, perhaps you could confiscate the device from its user for a day or two.  (Norton Family claims to be able to email you after someone uses incognito mode on the device.  But I've never tested it, and I don't know whether or not it would work reliably.  You should test the feature on a few separate occasions before relying upon it.)
You could try Qustodio.  Even though their (experimental) incognito-blocking feature didn't work for me, maybe it will work for you.
If you are willing to root your phone, this may provide you with a new, additional option for disabling incognito mode.  Remember that you can unroot your phone afterwards.

Why this answer is pointless
Yet all this is pointless.  The user can use the browser's "Clear History" tool, or Android's application manager, to clear the browsing history — anytime he wants to.
Why would anyone want to disable incognito mode?
Answer: You could try Incoquito - it's paid and allows you to either automatically close all incognito tabs when the screen turns off or to disable incognito browsing altogether by preventing incognito tabs from being opened at all. It further includes a monitoring mode as well as logging of events/activities related to incognito browsing in Chrome as well as the ability to hide the app from the launcher. It also includes the following experimental features (as requested by several parents):

Log videos played within the YouTube app
Uninstall detection & prevention
Android settings guard
Block access to YouTube app

Disclosure: I am the developer of Incoquito.
Comment: Dear parents: Incoquito alone isn't sufficient. It may be easy for your kids to get around it, even if they're not tech-savvy. You must also install a filter. ❧ The free version of Qustodio is probably the best free option; the free version of Norton Family might be the second-best free filter. If you're willing to pay, I've read that NetSpark or GenTech are better than the free products. ❧ You may also want to collect up your spouse's and kids' new and old Android devices, and to lock them all in your bedroom every night.
Answer: Qustodio provides a way to disable to block Incognito browsing.
You need:

Qustodio Account
Qustodio App for Android
Open App > Configure this Device > Device Settings > Block Incognito Browsing
Patience, wait for some time for it to work and block incognito mode.

Source: How do I block Incognito mode browsing on Android with Qustodio?
Comment: "*Once this feature is enabled Qustodio will automatically detect within a short time when user is engaging in Incognito browsing and block the web-browser completely until the administrator of the Qustodio account enters the Qustodio password to unblock the device....No. Blocking of Incognito browsing is not immediate. It takes a short time for Qustodio to analyze browsing activity to detect that Incognito mode is being used.*" I see. Thanks for the article though.
Comment: How does this app work? Have you used this personally? Please share a screenshot which shows that either the Incognito mode can't be accessed for some reason or is simply unavailable in Chrome, after configuring the app.
Comment: I have not used it personally. Here's the source https://www.qustodio.com/en/help/article/1796566/
Comment: @Firelord:  On my phone, I can freely use incognito mode for an hour or more.  Even after an hour or more, Qustodio neither detects my incognito browsing nor takes any corrective actions.  I suppose I could have [contacted their support team](https://www.qustodio.com/en/help/) and sent in a bug report, but instead I have rooted my phone and disabled incognito mode using [another technique](http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/117394/on-android-how-can-i-disable-google-chromes-incognito-mode).
Answer: I have just released a new app which blocks incognito tabs from Chrome, Incognito Away. It has password protect features, and is geared towards parents wanting to protect their children.
The Chrome tabs are blocked instantly, as soon as some tries to open it. You can also have a pop-up message appear when some does try and open an incognito tab. For example, you could write out a warning to a child.
Additionally, there is an inbuilt feature to hide the app's icon from the launcher, so that it's harder for someone to even find that the app is installed.
To prevent people from being able to uninstall the app, I would recommend that you download an "App Lock" type app from the Play Store (such as this one). This will make it so that if someone tries to open your Device Settings to uninstall the app, a password will be required.
Note: I am the developer of Incognito Away. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch :)
Answer:
Google Family Link
If you set Google Family Link to protect an Android device, it will automatically disable Google Chrome's incognito mode on that device.  (Google says so in this article.  I myself have tried Family Link and verified that the article is correct.)
Family Link can also do Web filtering, screen-time monitoring, and device-location tracking.  But these features are optional; you may disable them if you wish.
The usual Family Link setup is as follows:  One device (a computer or mobile device) is the "parent" device, and a second device is the "child" device.  Incognito mode will only be disabled on the "child" device.
If you'd like to get started, you may set up a "parent" account now.
It has quirks
Google Family Link has some quirks.  I've described the biggest quirk I've noticed, and its workaround, in another thread.
I hope that Google will work on eliminating the quirks in the future.
Despite its quirks, Family Link works reasonably well already, and I think it's a good way to disable incognito mode.
It may be easy to defeat
I'm not sure whether or not Family Link is easy for crafty children to defeat.  But, in general, there are ways to defeat most parental-control software tools.
It's wise to buy your kids a flip phone with no data plan, and a non-portable computer which is permanently stored in a public room such as the living room.  It's also wise to store all of your personal cellphones, laptops, and tablets in your bedroom at night, so that your kids can't secretly use them.
Answer: SecureTeen is a great app for Android and iOS -- blocks incognito mode, and gives parents the ability to block apps if necessary. Also shows history of Google searches. It has been a great tool in our family. Officially, it has 5,000+ reviews and a 3.5 star rating (as of April 2016).
Comment: This doesn't appear to block Incognito mode, it just logs all activity whether or not Incognito is used.
Comment: You can't with Secureteen, it's not a reliable parenting app, I have it installed on androids phone with lollipop and several problems were validated, incognito mode is not blocked and useless users support...consider Norton family or other alternatives
Comment: A Google Play rating of 3.5 stars isn't very good.
Comment: @tealhill 3.5 stars is **considerably bad** for an app on Play store. Generally 4.0 is "not bad" and 4.2-4.3 is "mediocre / average".


How can Angels Spirits disobey her?

Question: In Lucy's fight with Angel the Gemini transform into Lucy and it makes her spirits do whatever she says, but when Angels spirits learn about Lucy's love for spirits they start disobeying Angel how does that work? Shouldn't they be under the same I can't disobey my master rule?
Answer: The spirits are their own people. Loki (Loke) says this when he has a flashback to his previous owner. They share feelings with one another (Demonstrated when Loki and Aries are both hit; they tried to grab each others hands).
They are under the same "can't disobey my master" rules, however they can stand up for what's right (Loki did this with his former master, Karen Lilica). They can inhibit the wizard's ability to summon another spirit since they know that summoning 2 spirits at once is taxing on the user's magical abilities. This would be considered rebellion, the contract (still vague on the community) is a bond that states that a spirit is under the wizard's control until their key is broken. It never once was stated in the manga and anime series that the spirit can't rebel.
Comment: true but then why did Lucy's spirits still attack her when gemini  were impersonating her

How can Angels Spirits disobey her?


King of Tokyo: Acid Attack

Question: In King of Tokyo, what are the consequences of the acid attack card? Specifically, the following questions:

Who does the damage effect?
Does the damage count as an attack?
If damaged by acid attack while in Tokyo, can the monster leave Tokyo?
Answer: The damage will hit any valid target of a normal dice-based attack, so if you are in Tokyo (City or Bay) all players outside Tokyo are hit, but if you are outside Tokyo the player(s) in Tokyo are damaged. (Taken from the official-ish FAQ from BoardGameGeek)
The damage from Acid Attack does not count as an attack, and a monster in Tokyo cannot yield their place as a result of it. It is explicitly stated on page 4 of the rulebook:

[Life] lost dealt from a Power card effect is different than [dice Claw symbols]. A Monster can only Yield Tokyo when losing from [Life] from [dice Claw symbols].
Answer: The answer depends on which edition of King of Tokyo you are playing.
In the first edition, the answer is given by the answer of user Ken Herbert.
In the second (2016) edition, the Acid Attack Power Card states:

Add [Claw symbol] to your Roll.

Hence, it acts in the same way as if you had an extra die and rolled a Claw with it. Hence, if you have this card and are outside of Tokyo, the monster in Tokyo can yield.
Answer: Mostly just wanted to add this info to stack exchange. These answers are the general consensus as found on boardgamegeek.com and other stack exchange questions.
Who does the damage effect?
Damage effects players in the way a normal attack would. Essentially, if you are in Tokyo, you deal damage to all monsters outside of Tokyo. If you are outside Tokyo, you deal damage to all players in Tokyo.
Does the damage count as an attack?
Similar to other damage dealing cards, acid attack does not count as an attack. The damage is dealt in addition to attack damage.
If damaged by acid attack while in Tokyo, can a monster leave Tokyo?
Since damage dealt by acid attack does not count as attack damage, a monster cannot leave Tokyo if dealt damage only by acid attack. If the monster is attacked (in addition to damage from acid attack) they may leave Tokyo as they normally could.

King of Tokyo: Acid Attack


Can WordPress handle these functionalities?

Question: I'm a front-end designer/developer whose weapon of choice for the back-end is WordPress. Up to this point all of my projects involving WordPress were fairly basic and it has handled everything beautifully. I just landed a new client that wants some extra functionality built into his next project and I'm hoping some of you WordPress wizards can give me some good advice while I'm putting together the quote.
I'm trying to limit the need for any subcontracting for the back-end functionality, so my question is whether or not WordPress can handle the following (via plugins or light custom manipulation):
The idea behind the site is to be a community calendar based on location that Health Care providers can log in and post their events to, as well as participate in discussions, blogs and all the other WordPress goodness. The specific functionalities that I'm unsure of the best way to accomplish are:

Full featured calendar that members with access can add their own events to - must be searchable by date/type of event/location etc
Event generator module for members that integrates with calendar - includes upload field for images and forms for details event info
Interactive map to filter both of the above by location (I'm assuming this will need to be flash, but I'd rather find another solution if possible)

I know there are other solutions out there that may be more suited to this than WordPress (Drupal, custom build, etc) but if it's at all possible to tackle this as a one man show then I'm going to charge it head-on!
Humble web folk and fellow WordPress fans...your insight would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time.
Answer: I really like BuddyPress for interactive communities, so I tend to go overkill and use it for anything that might possibly evolve to need its functionality in the future. Combine it with an events plugin like Buddyvents or EventPress to create a much richer user experience than you'd have with just an events plugin alone.
The other upshoot of using BuddyPress is you can implement group-based forums really easily out of the box, which may ease other parts of your development process.


Why do female opera singers use head voice?

Question: Why do female opera singers mostly sing in the head voice? Is this a stylistic thing, or is it because it's harmful for the voice? Is it wrong when a mezzo-soprano sing mostly in the mixed or chest voice in opera?
Answer: The short and simple answer is: because this results in a vocal sound that opera fans like to hear. Singers develop certain techniques because the vocal sound that results from these techniques are popular.
Furthermore, composers write music that requires singers to be able to use certain techniques.
And also the operatic style requires a singer to be able to be heard clearly without using any microphones or amplification, while singing along with a large orchestra, in an auditorium full of more than one thousand listeners. So opera singers develop certain techniques to enable their voice to be heard clearly under these challenging circumstances.
The techniques that one individual singer learns are those that are appropriate according to the singer's gender and the type of voice that the singer has, whether bass, baritone, tenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, or soprano.
Comment: Your third paragraph should not be taken too lightly. The total acoustic power output of an orchestra is much much greater than any solo vocalist can produce, yet singers can be heard above the orchestra. Possibly the biggest reason why is that the singers are trained to sing with a formant that really stands out above the aggregate sound of the orchestra. If you look at a spectrum analysis, there is a bump over a range of frequencies that is not there when the singer is not singing.
Comment: A link with a picture says it all: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/singfor.html
Answer: You will hear female opera singers using chest and mixed voice in the bottom of their ranges.  But that's a small proportion of their range, which is so much larger than most pop singers'.
Answer: That's because high notes must be directed in the head and all the other in the chest. Direct an high note to the head makes that sounds greater than a chest note and using this technique extends the vocal range.
Answer: They don't mainly use head voice, actually. If it seems like this is the case,  then it's just a factor of where a piece's tessitura lies.
In classical singing singers tend to sing much higher than in other styles and genres. Thus while they may be using head voice proportionally more than non-classical singers, when they sing in the same lower range they always employ chest voice or a mix.


Some .CR2 files open with Camera Raw but some do not - on my mac

Question: I am able to open some but not all of my .CR2 files with Camera Raw 6.7 and Photoshop CS5. On my Canon Rebel XSi, if my Quality setting is set only to RAW, the .CR2 files open in Camera Raw 6.7 and Photoshop CS5 with no problem. If the Quality setting is set to RAW and L (large jpg), those .CR2 files DO NOT open with Camera Raw or Photoshop. I have installed various versions of Adobe DNG converter with no success. Canon's Digital Photo Professional and RawTherapee would show thumbnails but could not convert, 'save as' or batch any of the suspect .CR2 files. My mac's OS is 10.6.8. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes time to offer a solution.
Comment: You said that the .xmp files were created by your Rebel XSi, I don't get that. They were probably created by Camera Raw unless I misunderstand something. Also, you should be able to download DPP from the Canon website, I have a bunch of times before. But I think you may need some way to prove that you already own DPP, which might be the CD.
Comment: I was mistaken about the source of the xmp files. You are correct. Will try again to obtain a copy of DPP from Canon. Thanks.
Comment: Would it be possible to upload to some site two of your CR2 images, one that works and one that doesn't, and provide links here? Assuming your problem did not solve itself already.
Comment: Sure, here is a link to one of the CR2 files that I [can't open](http://guyradcliffe.com/cr2s/IMG_4103.CR2.zip). Here is a link to an 'openable' [CR2 file](http://guyradcliffe.com/cr2s/IMG_4370.CR2.zip). Just to recap, the CR2s only fail to open when the camera is shooting CR2s and jpgs simultaneously. If I shoot only as a CR2, it opens no problem. I hope you can find some way to open the non working file. I had given up on trying to solve this.
Comment: I believe there is a more current version of Adobe Camera Raw. Have you tried it? Adobe also has a free utility to convert to .DNG format. Can you convert to .DNG and then open the .DNG file with ACR?
Answer: Hmm. Weird!
Try using DPP with your 'unopenable' raw files. If DPP doesn't open them then there may be something wrong with your camera or memory card.
Have you tried using a different memory card?
have you tried shooting tethered w/o a memory card and have the images copied straight to the computer?
Comment: I have used several different memory cards but with each card the .CR2 files would not open if the shot was taken while recording RAW and jpeg simultaneously. My guess is that something is wrong with the camera. Moving forward I shoot using just RAW and have no problems opening the files. I just wish I could open some of the RAW files that I had shot in the past while simultaneously RAW and jpeg. I had a couple of good shots and those CR2s won't open. Have not tried shooting tethered w/o a memory card.
Answer: Check the version of DPP installed on your computer.
The DPP version on your computer should be the one that is compatible with your camera. Higher version is not necessarily the best for your camera.
I faced the same issue as you had. My camera was 550D and the DPP I had installed on my computer was v3.5.x (which was downloaded off the Internet because I misplaced my CD). All images shot with (RAW+L) showed the CR2 images as X.
I downloaded the right version of DPP from Canon Europe site (which was DPP v3.14.48) and all my CR2 files were able to open and edit without any issue.
So check your compatible DPP version from http://www.canon-europe.com/support/consumer_products/product_ranges/cameras/eos/ . Select your camera and download the right update for your DPP.
Good Luck


How do i fix a corrupted file on fallout new vegas

Question: I have been playing fallout new vegas for about five days. I tried to load it again but it just gives me an infinite loading  screen. my cousin said it was a corrupted file. My question is, is  there a way to fix it?
Answer: Unless you're a binary editing guru, there is no way to fix a corrupted save. You will need to load an earlier save. If other saves display the same problem, roll back any changes you've done to your mods or try a fresh install without any mods.
Answer: I can tell you, from experience, how to recover your manual save (not your auto-save). This has happened to me several times on xbox 360. Not sure what platform you're on, but probably will work for any.
The problem is with the auto-save. It gets corrupted and somehow affects your manual save's ability to load as well. So, you need to overwrite your auto-save.
To do this, start a new game and get to the point where the game writes its first auto-save; this is right after you wake up in the doc's house.
Then, load your manual save. You should be good to go.
Answer: Start a new game, then load your save game file. That worked for me.
Answer: There isn't much that can be done about the corrupted save. Just load from previous save, that usually worked for me.
I haven't figured it out 100% sure, but this seems to be related to Steam Cloud sync. To disable it, go to Properties, select tab Updates and untick checkbox for Enable Steam Cloud synchronization for ….
Another possibility is that it happens when you're making a save while previous save is still being written to disk. Disabling auto-saves and relying only on manual saves could help.
Answer: Try loading your pervious save and THEN load your corrupted save (if autosave was corrupted then make sure you don't overwrite it). Worked with me.


How do I get a common-lisp GUI in Windows?

Question: I'm using Emacs, with CLISP and Slime, and want to be able to draw pictures on the screen.  I'm specifically thinking about drawing graphs, but anything that would let me draw basic shapes and manipulate them would be able to get me started.
Answer: Doug is right; CAPI will work fine. Other things you can try:
cltk: http://www.cliki.net/Lisp-Tk
I know that Allegro has something for Windows programming also, but I've never tried it.
What may also work is cells-gtk: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells-gtk/
Again, I can only tell you that it exists but not how bad it is or if it even really works...
I can not comment also on the quality of
http://www.cliki.net/GTK%20binding
But that's mostly what is available.
Corman Lisp probably has something to offer for Windows programming also.
Anyway, the choices on Windows are relatively slim. The you can probably have the most confidence in CAPI, which is used for the LispWorks IDE on Windows, Linux, MacOS X and on quite few big unices also...
Regards
Answer: I think I've found my own answer. Clojure seems to have everything I was looking for, just because I can now use all of the Java GUI items natively in LISP. It is a different dialect of LISP than the Common-Lisp I was using, but seems to have a lot of community support, and integrates with my Windows installation of Emacs either through SLIME or through the Inferior-Lisp interpreter. So far I've been very impressed.
Oh, a code sample:
<code>(. javax.swing.JOptionPane (showMessageDialog nil "Hello World"))
</code>
Any guesses what this does? :)
Bill Clementson's blog has quite a bit on Clojure, including a lot of helpful posts on installing it. See here: his posts on Clojure
Answer: You could switch from CLISP to the free LispWorks Personal Edition and use the CAPI Graphics Ports drawing API.
Or you could use Lisp's Foreign Function Interface and use one of the graphics toolkits available for your OS.
Comment: The GUI toolkit is only offered in LispWorks Professional and Enterprise edition AFAIK. It is not available in the personal edition
Answer: For rolling your own (like you said, basic shapes) try Lispbuilder-SDL or one of the cl-cairo FFIs (it's just my guess that the latter work with MS Windows, though).
Answer: I know this is an old post, but so the information is here for others like me who find this thread looking for the same thing.
This library for tk bindings in common lisp seems to work fairly well.
http://www.peter-herth.de/ltk/
Answer: Clojure is an excellent Lisp, and Swing is a solid (if not particularly visually exciting) windowing toolkit. If you want do do more advanced graphics and/or dabble with game programming you might want to check out Slick, which is a general purpose graphics/game library that sits on top of Swing and gives you access to OpenGL and lots of other stuff.
I've found the Clojure/Slick combination an excellent way to do exploratory graphics programming, as you can interact with the graphics window directly from the REPL.
Answer: There's cl-cairo2 - a binding to Cairo vector drawing library. It can be used to draw various pictures on various surfaces. There's a cl-2d library that uses cl-cairo2 to draw charts.
And there's cl-gtk2 - a binding to Gtk+ library. You can create widgets that are drawn with cl-cairo2 (or cl-2d) that draw what you want.
Answer: CLISP users might find The following useful for their graphics applications:

cl-vectors is a pure Common Lisp
  library to create, transform and
  render anti-aliased vectorial paths.
  It can be installed using
  ASDF-Install.
  http://projects.tuxee.net/cl-vectors/
Vecto is a simplified interface to the
  powerful CL-VECTORS vector
  rasterization library....the results
  can be saved to a PNG ... Since Vecto
  and all supporting libraries are
  written completely in Common Lisp,
  without depending on external non-Lisp
  libraries, it should work in any
  Common Lisp environment. Vecto is
  available under a BSD-like license.
  The current version is 1.4.3, released
  on August 26, 2009.
  http://www.xach.com/lisp/vecto/


How to set default Window position and/or size?

Question: Whenever I start an application like Terminal or Preview, they are always opened as a small window on the top left corner of the screen. Is there any way to set them to open in the center of the screen? Preferably maximized too?
Answer: In Terminal you can change the default window size from Preferences > Settings > Window:

You can also use window groups to set a default position and size for the window opened when you launch Terminal (but not for new windows opened later).

I use Sequential and Skim as alternatives to Preview and iTerm 2 as an alternative to Terminal. All of them have an option to open windows in full screen by default, and all of them have their own (pre-Lion and actually usable) implementations for full screen windows.
The sizes of Finder windows are saved in .DS_Store files and there are no default window size settings in com.apple.Finder.plist or anything. I use a script like this to reset the properties of windows:
tell application "Finder"
    if number of Finder windows is 0 then return
    tell Finder window 1
        set toolbar visible to false
        set sidebar width to 0
        set statusbar visible to false
        set current view to column view
        set bounds to {960, 44, 1920, 1076}
        tell its column view options
            set shows icon to false
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Comment: How can I change the default window size of an app, like Keynote?
Answer: Slate (a window manager) is extremely configurable, and using the JavaScript config file will allow you to do this. Events like a window opening can be handled with a JavaScript callback which moves the window to fill the screen.
An example of what you want: (taken pretty much directly from the wiki page)
slate.on("windowOpened", function(event, win) {
    if (win.app().name() === "Terminal" || win.app().name() === "Preview") {
        win.move("x" : "screenOriginX", "y" : "screenOriginY",
                 "width" : "screenSizeX", "height" : "screenSizeY");
    }
});

Comment: And I gave you points for this one 2, in thanks for publishing the script :)
Answer: I'd like to help you with the correct answer which is given on SuperUser: What controls saved / default window sizes and positions in OS X?
Next to that, if you don't want to mess with the .plist files I can recommend you BetterSnapTool which can be used to drag a program to the top of a screen like you can do in Windows 7 by default.
Answer: On OSX 10.9, when I drag the Terminal window to a different spot, then quit, the new location is remembered upon relaunch. To change the size of the window, in Preferences -> Text, you can make the font size bigger, which will be remembered. In Preferences -> Window, you can set the number of rows/columns as well.
Answer: Get an app named SizeUp. It is not free but it pays for itself in productivity real quick.