If someone was an Once-returner in last life how can he know that ?

Question: There are 4 stages in the path to nirvana.  one of them is called "Once-returner" and they will be born only once as a human. So my question is , If Someone was an once-returner in last life , how can he know it in this life ? And if he does nothing in this life to attain nirvana, will he automatically be arahath and no rebirths?
Comment: Ps: image is based on an answer which @Lanka has provided to my last question.
Comment: From the table, once-returner reborn once in human world might not match well with a case of  Migasala's father, Purana, who was a once-returner reborn in Dusita Heaven.
Comment: If I have moved beyond 1-3, conquered 5 but still 70/30 on 4. Done with 6&7, problems with 8, no issue with 9 and working on 10 ... where would that put me? just curious thank you my friend!
Comment: I think after attainment of Stream-Entry stage, the "births" will be in the spiritual realms and not earth. Maybe only few ones will come back to this earth with their choices for different reasons. The Buddhist texts also say that the birth can be in heaven realms "or" earth.
Answer:
"So my question is , If Someone was an once-returner in last life , how can he know it in this life ?"

When one has attained to stream entry and the higher stages such as Once-returner etc. both ones morality and spiritual faculties (indriyas) are well developed and firmly established.
When they are mature and well developed we call them the Five Powers. They work in unison each balancing and strengthening each other further.
This creates a powerful momentum and that momentum might mean that a Once-returner does not have the possible to "stop" on his/her path. That being would be so inclined towards Nibbana that anything else is not possible.
A Once-returner has done away with 3 of the lower 5 fetters and have weakened fetter no. 4 and 5. Especially the removal of fetter no. 2 (doubt in the Buddha) is important. A Once-returner will have full confidence in the Buddha and his teaching as he/she has already destroyed fetters and entered into the noble path.

"And if he does nothing in this life to attain nirvana, will he automatically be arahath and no rebirths?"

I'm not sure its possible to do nothing once one has entered into the stream.
Either way the Once-returner still needs to practice in order to remove the 5 higher fetters thereby attaining to Arahantship.
A Once-returner will be reborn one more time into the Sense-sphere Realm which contains; the Hell realm, Pretas, Animal Kingdom, Asuras, Human Realm and Deva Realm (heavenly realm).
As the 3 lower fetters has been destroyed a Once-returner can only be reborn in either the Human or Heavenly Realm.
Answer: In the Udakupama Sutta: The Water Simile is is said that there are seven types of individuals are to be found existing in the world. Of the seven, the once-returner:

is like the case where an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Conviction in skillful qualities is good, conscience is good, concern is good, persistence is good, discernment with regard to skillful qualities is good.' With the total ending of [the first] three fetters, and with the attenuation of passion, aversion, & delusion, he becomes a once-returner, who — on returning only one more time to this world — will make an ending to stress.

In coming into the world, a once-returner knows who or what s/he is because of a special ability. The ability to figure this out is called the "namarupa paricceda nana". This basically means "rupa" are according "nama" - one's body is according to one's thinking. It is because he/she is likely to display qualities or "gathi" of of the previous birth.
Answer: Please see https://what-buddha-said.net/Canon/Sutta/KN/Dhammapada.Verse_18.story.htm
Once returner, Sumanadevi, youngest daughter of Anathapindika, she knew what is what and even remind her father, a sottappti at her death-bed. Their Dhamma is never destroyed after-life and when it is time just by reviewing the nana already attained, they will get nibbana.
Answer:
And if he does nothing in this life to attain nirvana, will he automatically be arahath and no rebirths?

He may becomes a non returner and be born in the pure abodes.
Answer: Once-returner, Sakadagami, has to remove first 3 fetters and reduce binding strength in 4 and 5 fetters.  It's up for debate which world they would reappear after death.  Buddha said Loka which could mean heaven or human realm.  However, a case example of a sakadagami death during Buddha's time, a sakadagami appeared in heaven Dusita.
IMO, sakadagami would reappear once in heaven. In contrast with Ekpechi Stream-enterer (stream enterer who would be reborn in human world one more time). For Ekpechi, Buddha used reborn into a clan , kula, which exclusively human.
non-returners only reappear in Pure Abodes (Suddhavasa) which divided into 5 catagories; Āviha, Ātappa, Sudassa, Sudassī, Akanittha
I am studying anagami according to Buddha's words and found something interesting that others may have noticed too.
It is traditionally known that anagami has to remove 5 lower fetters to be one but I found a few sutta that might not be the case.  Buddha only explicitly mentioned that those in Akanittha have eliminated lower 5 fetters but not for the other 4 categories; Āviha, Ātappa, Sudassa, Sudassī.
example is from Metta Sutta ii, where Buddha said noble disciples who practice Kindness medition and see 5 sense gates as impermanent etc., upon breaking up of body, he would reappear in Suddhavasa as non-returner.  There is no mentioning of 5 lower fetters here (but Noble disciples are automatically known that they have broken first 3 fetters).
Akanittha is reserved for those without 5 lower fetters, but I am not certain yet exclusively for the other 4;  Āviha, Ātappa, Sudassa, Sudassī.
Comment: please provide some links for what you post. thanks.
Answer: I have not read in the Pali suttas of any examples of when a non-arahant noble-one was reincarnated back to earth as a human being.
For example, the idea that a stream-enterer has seven more lives has no basis in the suttas because the sutta (SN 13.1) that has the phrase "seven more times at most" does not mention "lives" but refers to seven more fetters to breakthrough.
I have not read anywhere a logical explanation of what the term "once-returner" means, apart from the fetters broken through or reduced.
Since all arahants at one time were stream-enterers, these terms obviously do not refer to lifetimes.
Comment: Could you point to where exactly SN 13.1 mentions 7 fetters? My understanding is that sattakkhattuṃparamatta means seven lives at most .I don't see how phrase sattakkhattu can be translated to seven fetters. Thanks.
Comment: Paramatā means "at most" For stream enterer with broken 3 fetters and still 7 AT MOST fetters to go doesn't make much sense since it is exactly 7 more to go.  Unless ariyasāvakassa diṭṭhisampannassa also includes none-returner , then 7 at most fetters would make more sense in this context.
Comment: SN 13.1 does not mention "lives" therefore what exactly is your "understanding"? Since when was "understanding" in Buddhism some kind of blind faith? The sutta is about fetters therefore there are 7 fetters at most. It is not exactly 7 fetters because the stream-enterer may not break the remaining fetters. My logic makes perfect sense in the context of the sutta, which is about the BREAKTHROUGH. There are 7 more breakthroughs at most.


Messaging menu turn blue for no reason

Question: I expect the "envelope" from the messaging menu to turn blue only where there is a pending notification (like a new mail or a new IM message). When I click it, I usually see from which app the notification come from.
Sometime, the envelope turn blue, but there is no notification. When I click the envelope, I don't see any app with notifications pending. I can "clean" the notifications to change the color to white, but the envelope will turn blue again after some minutes.
The only solution I found is to reboot the computer...
Is it a known bug? There is a way to get the application that send this notification? I didn't find anything about that after a Google search.

I still didn't find way to get a "debug view" of the messaging menu.  I found dbus-monitor but this just spam too much and I can't find anything useful from that.
Seem like I'm missing some messages from Pidgin (xmpp).  I'm thinking that the messaging icon become blue to warn me a new message was received, but Pidgin fails to show me that message.
Answer: I think I found the problem.  Even if I already uninstalled empathy app, the framework telepathy was still running in the background, so I had 2 connections opened on the xmpp server...

Messaging menu turn blue for no reason


Does the brain use more energy during mental work?

Question: There is the idea that mental work is tiring.
Does the brain as a whole need to consume more glucose and oxygen when we are "mentally active"?
Comment: Some [new research](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=thinking-hard-calories)? Someone want to write it up? I am mentally exhausted at the moment.
Comment: In the physiology course we learned that this is surprisingly *not* the case (i.e. the brain always consumes the same amount of energy, no matter the workload). Surely you also took the course and learned the same? ;-) But +1, since I always wondered the same and actually intended to ask the same question.
Comment: @Konrad: I'm retaking the course at the moment and the answer is still the same that it was when you took the course ;) Unfortunately there no script for the course and therefore I can't link to it. [for those of you who don't know, we are studying at the same subject at the same university]
Comment: @Oddthinking: There nothing new about the research you refer to. A linked paper like "Carbohydrates and mental function: feeding or impeding the brain?" comes from 2007. Over at biology.stackexachange there are answer to this question which reflect the scientific consensus.
Comment: @Christian: Your comments throughout seem to indicate you are on top of this issue. Any chance you want to write a summary answer from those sources? The answers here don't strike me as definitive (e.g. Ye/No/It's more complicated/no-one knows for sure.)
Comment: @Oddthinking: I'm not really on top of the issue anymore than I know that my professors in university considered this to be a clear fact. Konrad took the same course maybe 5-6 years ago and got the same impression.
Answer: fMRI scanner images show increased areas of blood flow in parts of the brain during mental work. Increased neural activity causes an increased demand for oxygen, and the vascular system actually overcompensates for this, increasing the amount of oxygenated hemoglobin relative to deoxygenated hemoglobin1.
Because deoxygenated hemoglobin attenuates the MR signal, the vascular response leads to a signal increase that is related to the neural activity2.
However, it is not known if this correlates precisely with neural activity, and it is an ongoing area of research3.

Oxygenation dependence of the transverse relaxation time of water protons in whole blood at high field
Cellular mechanisms of brain energy metabolism and their relevance to functional brain imaging
Baseline GABA concentration and fMRI response
Comment: An fMRI scanner shows that specific brain area's consume more energy when they are active. Most fMRI pictures however show different activity in different parts of the brain. Does the brain shift energy uses from one part to the other or does the brain as a whole increases the amount of energy that it uses?
Comment: Following from @Christian's comment: Is there anything here to suggest that the increase is significant enough to cause tiredness? It it an increase of, say, 10% or 0.0001% of the body's oxygen (or ATP?) consumption.
Comment: Thanks for the edit :) I'm not sure if the brain merely shifts around blood, or manages to obtain more from the rest of the body. I think it's a bit of both.
Answer: Edit: I've learned that this article should not be trusted, due to multiple weaknesses.
Perhaps Gailliot et al.'s1 work on blood glucose and self-control is a more  direct answer than the fMRI results (I'm also a bit skeptical like footnote 3). I think the link with blood glucose is not specific to self-control.

The present work suggests that
  self-control relies on glucose as a
  limited energy source. Laboratory
  tests of self-control (i.e., the
  Stroop task, thought suppression,
  emotion regulation, attention control)
  and of social behaviors (i.e., helping
  behavior, coping with thoughts of
  death, stifling prejudice during an
  interracial interaction) showed that
  (a) acts of self-control reduced blood
  glucose levels, (b) low levels of
  blood glucose after an initial
  self-control task predicted poor
  performance on a subsequent
  self-control task, and (c) initial
  acts of self-control impaired
  performance on subsequent self-control
  tasks, but consuming a glucose drink
  eliminated these impairments.
  Self-control requires a certain amount
  of glucose to operate unimpaired. A
  single act of self-control causes
  glucose to drop below optimal levels,
  thereby impairing subsequent attempts
  at self-control.

1 Gailliot, Matthew T.; Baumeister, Roy F.; DeWall, C. Nathan; Maner, Jon K.; Plant, E. Ashby; Tice, Dianne M.; Brewer, Lauren E.; Schmeichel, Brandon J.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 92(2), Feb 2007, 325-336. doi: 10.1037/0022-3518.104.22.1685
Comment: Stress can plausibly increase muscle tension. Increased muscle tension consumes glucose outside the brain.
Comment: Hehe, didn't think of that. But still, it wouldn't explain that low levels of blood glucose predicted poor performance on subsequent self-control tasks, unless the increased muscle tension was somehow necessary to concentrate.
Comment: Low blood glucose could trigger parasympathicus activity. Parasympathicus activity reduces vigilance and makes concentration harder.
Comment: Very nice! I'll go through http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&sciodt=1%2C5&q=%22autonomic+nervous+system%22&btnG=Search&cites=17657455905641503034&scipsc=1&as_sdt=2005&as_ylo=&as_vis=0&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&query_as=word later and see if that has ever been controlled for.
Comment: @Christian I didn't find a study which controlled for this. Now I'm intrigued that you might be right and they would have been measuring an artifact. Do you have references for your claims? I'd also like to chat with you about it, since you apparently have a lot of expertise.
Comment: @Ruben: I'm studying bioinformatics. Unfortunately there no good way to reference claims that happen in university lectures. We evolved in an environment where you usually had a low blood glucose level when you expended a lot of energy for physical activity. After physical activity it was beneficial to go into "resting mode". The human body is a complex system. It's not optimized for "mental work". As far as chatting: Either open a chat on this website or give me some way to contact you outside of this website.
Comment: @Christian: Often the best way to reference claims from lectures is to look in prescribed text-book (and then look at *its* references. Text-books generally have simplified descriptions.)
Answer: I think Chris Dennet's answer is a bit misleading, and I would like to see quoted sections for such a complex question rather than some lonely links. In my opinion, there is no direct link between fMRI signal and neuronal activity.
I looked for research on the changes of brain activity (sleep, resting, cognitive tasks...) and overall energy consumption of the brain. I found two very good articles putting your question into a bigger picture, quite academically written, but they focus on the statements concerning energy consumption. The articles also discuss what actually can be derived from brain imaging data (fMRI, PET) and how higher conscious brain functions relate to physiological changes measured by these techniques.
The basic conclusion is that the brain doesn't vary its energy consumption much, whether resting, tasked. In fact, it needs high average activity (high metabolism, energy consumption) to make specific functionality possible at all. So it's not like a computer where you start a program (analogous to higher conscious brain function, e.g. playing chess) and then the processor and memory consumption rises. Instead, the energy consumption is already and constantly on a high average level, otherwise the operating system (brain) couldn't run distinct software (function) at all.**
I've quoted the most important parts, but both articles give a pretty good overview and draw the bigger picture around your question.

brain represents about 2% of the body
weight. Remarkably, despite its
relatively small size, the brain
accounts for about 20% of the oxygen
and, hence, calories consumed by the
body. This high rate of metabolism
is remarkably constant despite widely
varying mental and motoric activity
showing that the maximum values of
oxygen consumption and spike frequency
achieved during stimulation were
approximately the same from both
baselines (i.e., both levels of
anesthesia). The authors assert that
an overall level of ongoing activity
must be achieved for a particular
function to occur
This high metabolic activity is
present when we are completely passive
and resting as well as when we are
observably doing something. Two lines
of investigation have recently
converged in their analysis on how
this energy is being used. Both have
focused on the metabolic requirements
associated with glutamate signaling in
the brain. This focus would seem
reasonable, considering that greater
than 80% of neurons are excitatory and
greater than 90% of synapses release
glutamate (6, 7). Attwell and Laughlin
(8) have taken a bottom up modeling
approach using extant data on the
blowfly retina and the mammalian
cerebral cortex. Estimates from their
approach indicate that most of the
energy used in the brain is required
for the propagation of action
potentials and for restoring
postsynaptic ion fluxes after
receptors have been stimulated by the
neurotransmitter. In contrast,
maintenance of the resting potential
in neurons and glial cells accounts
for less than 15% of the total energy
consumption. Shulman and his
colleagues (9, 10) in a very different
approach using MRS in anesthetized
rats have shown remarkably converging
evidence that a very large fraction
(≈80%) of the energy use in the brain
is correlated with glutamate cycling
and, hence, active signaling processes
An intriguing hypothesis has emerged
that the responsiveness of neurons to
changes in their input depends on a
continuous, high-level but balanced
input of both excitatory and
inhibitory activity (for review, see
ref. 29). Importantly, it is the
balance between this continuous
excitatory and inhibitory input that
determines the gain or responsiveness
of the neurons to correlations in
their input. In this formulation,
spontaneous ongoing activity becomes a
critical enabling factor in the
creation of functional connections
within circuits responsible for
specific behaviors. Furthermore, this
correlation-induced functional
connectivity can be modified without
causing variations in the mean firing
rates of the involved cells. As
Salinas and Sejnowski have pointed out
in their review (29), balanced neurons
have rich dynamics and can react to
external stimuli on effective
timescales that are much smaller than
the membrane time constant of a single
neuron.
So, how might this relate to our
analysis of the energy budget of the
brain? It should be noted that most of
the neurophysiology discussed above
concerns synaptic activity at the
input to neurons. Because the highest
energy-demanding processes in the
brain are centered at these sites (27,
28), it suggests that much of the
ongoing or baseline metabolism is
devoted to processes occurring there.
We might therefore posit that, in the
brain, a large majority of its
metabolic activity is devoted to
ongoing synaptic processes associated
with maintaining a proper balance
between excitatory and inhibitory
activity. Maintenance of this balance
allows neurons to respond
appropriately to correlational changes
in their input and establish the
functional connectivity as required
for a particular task.
Thus, we may entertain the possibility
that the very high baseline or ongoing
metabolic activity of the brain not
only supports processes necessary for
the maintenance of the proper
responsiveness of neurons for the
transient and ever changing functions
of the brain but also instantiates a
sustained functionality.

source

Indeed, relative to the high rate of
ongoing or "basal" brain metabolism,6
the amount dedicated to task-evoked
regional imaging signals is remarkably
small (estimated to be less than 5%).
The brain continuously expends a
considerable amount of energy, even in
the absence of a particular task
(i.e., when a subject is awake and at
rest). A significant fraction of the
energy consumed by the brain (quite
possibly the majority) has been shown
to be a result of functionally
significant spontaneous neuronal
activity.7 From this cost-based
analysis of brain functional activity,
it seems reasonable to conclude that
intrinsic activity may be as
significant, if not more so, than
evoked activity in terms of overall
brain function.

source
Comment: As far as the last paragraph goes, most people can unconsciously recall a lot of information that they can't consciously recall. We can feel fear and anxiety towards stimuli without remembering our experience with the stimuli. In a similar way an experienced chess player unconsciously accesses experiences of a lot of his previous games.
Comment: @Christian it just shows, that we still dont know much about information processing methods of the brain. Also i wouldnt compare "fear" with "logical information based reasoning" in chess or poker (poker player dont reduce their thinking time for a action at high limits). First you can achieve by operational conditioning like a very fast body reflex (there is not much information processing involveld), second is based on slow learning, training of information/theories. Kim Peek can save a lot of information very fast and recall it, despite his brain doesnt use more energy than average joes.
Comment: So there is a small amount of extra energy that is used when thinking extra hard (less than 5%)? Am I reading that right, The entire rest of the answer seemed to be saying the opposite.
Comment: The brain never stops working. You may be at rest and doing "nothing", but your mind will still wander about. Daydreaming is like a screensaver for the brain that keeps processing high.


I can't access my Windows machine with xfreerdp

Question: My desktop machine is running Windows 7, and my laptop is running Ubuntu 13.10 (saucy).  I installed xfreerdp on the laptop, and on the desktop I allowed remote access.
I setup port forwarding on my router with port 3389 and the desktop as the host.  I checked the port, and it is open.  However when I try to access the machine with this command from the Ubuntu terminal, I get an error :
$ xfreerdp -u myUserName -p myPassword 192.168.1.18
   Error: protocol security negotiation failure.

(192.168.1.18 is my desktop's IP address)
I'm pretty new to all of this, so don't assume any prior knowledge.  I've managed to get from the Windows machine to the Linux machine using SSH via PuTTY, but I can't go the other way.
The impetus for this is I am doing a major home addition, and I will be living at a friends house for a month.  However I run a CAD program on the desktop, and I need to be able to design while I'm living in exile.
Thanks in advance for your help
P.S. Nevermind, I guess you can't get into a machine running Windows 7 Home, only Windows 7 Pro, Business, or Enterprise. Maybe Teamviewer?
Answer: God slution for you is to use VNC. Its free and support win and linux.
You can view more and download from here.
Work fine for me.
VNC use port 5900.


How can I run multiple instances of the Tor Browser Sandbox in linux?

Question: The Tor Browser Sandbox is pretty great (thanks Yawning!) but how can one run multiple instances of it at the same time?
Answer: This isn't really something that's supported, because it's an uncommon use case and the code is still at the point of "it should do common things really well".
That said, if you set $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $XDG_DATA_HOME to unique directories that exist (with appropriate permissions in the case of the runtime directory), it should work.
The use of the various directories is per the XDG Base Directory specification, available at https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
Comment: Note that this changes the search path for Pulse Audio related files. I had to set two other environment variables to get audio working in the sandbox, `export PULSE_COOKIE=~/.config/pulse/cookie` and
`export PULSE_SERVER=unix:/var/run/user/$(id -u)/pulse/native`.


Linux driver PCI Burst transfer

Question: i have a question about read and write using bursts on PCIe. I have a fpga which is connected through PCIe to the cpu. I have a simple driver which is just for testing. The driver writes and reads data to and from the fpga. The fpga includes an sram core where the datas are written to and read from. The read and writes are working well, but without bursts if i read from the device. If i write data to the fpga, bursts working well if i map the BAR with ioremap_wc(). But if i read from the fpga, the cpu just make single access without bursts. I found out that i have to mark the memory as write-back to be able to cache the datas on read an write transfers, but if i mark my adress write-back using /proc/mtrr there is no burst on read and write. The BAR in the PCI header is marked prefetchable. Does anybody of you know how to implement bursts for read and write on pci bus ? I hope anybody of can help me.
Answer: The best way to get burst transfers on the PICe bus it to use a DMA controller instead of processor I/O.  If your FPGA is a PCIe bus master, you may be able to program it to transfer the data. Otherwise there are DMA controllers built into most platforms.
I'd expect write combining to perform reads the same as uncached. But even if you use ioremap_cache(), your platform may not burst PIO reads.  It can depend on your processor, the instruction doing the read and system logic.

Linux driver PCI Burst transfer


Is the "really" in "I don't really know" necessary?

Question: I know that one can have a  greater or lesser amount of surety (i.e. "I'm not really sure"), but don't you either know or not know something?  Are there degrees of knowledge?  I hear this phrase often from reporters and news correspondents: "We don't really know..."  I think that this is a way to avoid saying "We don't know", which sounds more blunt, but is more precise.
Comment: I don't really know the answer to this question; I do know the answer to some, but I really don't know others at all.
Answer: Frequently, it is simply a matter of preference.  However, the following variations could be interpreted slightly differently.

I don't know.

A simple declaration.  Unambiguous.

I don't really know.

This is often used to deflect a negative self-assessment.  It's common to not want to admit that we don't know something, so we occasionally de-emphasize the declaration.

I really don't know.

You didn't mention this variation, but this is often used to do the opposite, actually emphasizing the fact that we don't know.  This can be used to stress to someone who may not believe you, that you in fact, really don't know something.
These are really just minor nuances, and the phrases are often used interchangeably.  If someone wants to express a degree of knowledge, some other phrase is usually used in conjunction with the declaration.  For example, "I don't know enough about X to answer that."
Comment: To me this can be a perfectly acceptable and non-weaselly follow-up as in, "I have my ideas about that, but I don't *really* know." It's emphasizing that you may sort of know, but not solidly so.
Comment: +1 for "It's common to not want to admit that we don't know something, so we occasionally de-emphasize the declaration."  This is my point exactly.  It just seems a little disingenuous.
Answer: I don't really know suggests that the speaker may know a little about the subject discussed but not really that much.
For example,

I don't know Jimi

probably means you have never heard of Jimi, while

I don't really know Jimi

means you may have heard of or even met Jimi but you do not know much about him.
Comment: @Fred: Even specific facts are open to ambiguity, inference, deduction, etc. Maybe you don't know for certain that there are talks, but you've heard rumours. In that case, it's perfectly fair to say you don't really know, even if you believe the rumours.
Comment: I understand your answer as it relates to broad topics.  But here's a specific example of what I mean:  "Are there currently backdoor talks between the administration and party leaders?"  "We don't really know".  My point is that one either knows or does not know such a specific fact.
Comment: Yes, thank you.  I was not as specific as I should have been with the question.
Answer: Different languages emphasize different things. Japanese, for example, has a tendency to emphasize the speaker's belief in the probability of events and the certainty of knowledge. The number of ways a Japanese speaker can say "I think it will rain tomorrow" is quite large.
English, in contrast, is very sensitive to order in which things occur or are likely to occur, as evidenced by such things as the future perfect tense (e.g., "by then I will have known the result).
But English also has a strong bias toward stress, so that degrees of knowledge are able to be pinpointed: I don't know. I'm not sure. I sort of know. I guess. Maybe. It's possible that... Etc.
Comment: Thanks for the insight into another language.  I enjoy learning about the differences.  To me, "I don't know" is clear; "I'm not sure" indicates ones lack of certainty; "I sort of know" is nearly as ambiguous (in my opinion) as "I don't really know"; "I guess" = "I don't know"; "Maybe" and "It's possible that" get at probability.
Answer: The word really used in this context is an all-purpose intensifier:

I really don't understand.
You're really getting on my nerves.
She really had me going there for a while.

In each of those cases the really could be dropped without a change of meaning, but the level of intensity of the statement would not be the same. The word fairly implores the listener to believe what is being said. It anticipates and attempts to preempt objections to a statement. In the normal course of a conversation, such an objection might be raised as the word itself.

John: I don't understand.
Joan: Really?
John: Yeah, really. I just don't get it.

By adding the really John would be attempting to avoid having to repeat himself.
Comment: Thank you for your answer, but I think that it refers to the phrase "I really don't know".  I understand that this phrase emphatically asserts that one does not know.  My question was about the phrase "I don't really know".
Comment: @Fred: That's all right. It is a parallel construction. Really operates the same way whatever the verb. That's all I'm saying.
Comment: I think that's wrong. "I don't really know" is, most emphatically, **not** as strong as "I really don't know."
Answer: To my mind, I'm not really sure, suggests that the speaker might not be certain of something, but they have some supporting evidence to think so.  For example:

Why did he leave?
I don't really know. However, I
  suspect it had something to do with
  the waffles.

Rather than hedging on the side of not knowing something, it can be hedging in the other direction.


Novation Bass Station II

Question: I recently bought a Novation Bass Station II and am finding it considerably difficult to adapt to. Most notably, I'm finding it difficult to produce relatively simple tones/timbres. What parameters will provide a good starting point from which to learn, experiment and sculpt new sounds?
Answer: Try learning synthesis in general. Bass Station 2 is a relatively easy synth, with classic parameters. You'll need to understand what each module or function is doing. I can recommend syntorial for this or you can find lots of books for beginners.
When you are confident about what each module does or if you already are, try finding patches you like (not nessecarily in BS only, maybe digital synth you have) and understand what it is doing. Why is that you like it. Try to modify them and keep experimenting.
Comment: Thank you for your response. I think, the difficulty I'm having is that; I seem to be simultaneously juggling all these superfluous modules, when basically; all I *really* want to do is; produce a; *simple* ***sine wave.***
Comment: sometimes less is more :))
Comment: For sure, it's just not always easy to know which positions various switches ought to be in, or if certain pots should be at 7 o'clock or 12 o'clock, and so on.

Novation Bass Station II


How do I prevent a menu item from appearing?

Question: I have a View with a page display. I placed the path of that page view in a menu item. I placed this link under the menu path Primary Links > Apps > Home > Admin View.
In the View defaults section, I set two roles to be able to view the page: administrator and a custom admin role I created.
I have a user that does not have the administrator or the custom admin role. They can see the Home menu item, but they can also see the Admin View. If they click on Admin View, they receive the error "You are not authorized to access this page."
I thought that in Drupal 6 menu items do not appear unless the user has access to them. I have another View for Project Manager Admin, and my user does not see that menu item.
Does anyone have any suggestions regarding where to start debugging this problem? I would like for the Admin View menu item to not appear for my user because my user does not have access to it.
I have tried logging on as the user in question in a different browser and on a different machine, and I can still see the menu item.
Thank you!
Answer: I deleted the menu item in question, and then I re-created it.
I could see the menu item when logged on as my self.  I could NOT see the menu item when logged on as the user in question.
Deleting the menu item and re-creating it caused my issue to go away.


Sitecore 9 EXM - where is it?

Question: What happened with EXM on Sitecore 9?
The latest EXM module says it only works on SC 8.2, there isn't anything for SC 9.
I've read that it is integrated on SC now and it is not a module anymore so why can't I see it on my dashboard?
When I looked at the Marketing Automation there is no action "send email" and can't see anywhere to create the email templates.
Comment: SC 9.0 Update 1 was released and now there is a built int action to send e-mail
Answer: There will not be a version 9 compatible EXM as it will be part of the core platform with v9 update 1.
Answer: EXM is slated for delivery in the next update for 9.0. It was not part of the initial release.
9.0 update 1 should be available soon, but right now if you need EXM functionality today you need to use 8.2
Comment: As with any software, the timing at which you upgrade should be based on the features you need from the new version. The EXM module has never been a part of the core platform before nor has EXM traditonally been released at the same time that a new version of Sitecore platform has been released. There has always been a lag between release of platform and release of the EXM version compatible with that version.

As @Tamas Varga states, though, it will become a part of the platform going forward so they will release together in the future.
Comment: OMG that is a major failure for Sitecore, how can you ship a CMS without e-mail support, honestly very disappointing hopefully the update 1 will be shipped soon.
Answer: EXM module doesn't have yet a version compatible with Sitecore 9.

https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/541788
As far I know a version compatible with Sitecore 9 will appear on next releases.

Sitecore 9 EXM - where is it?


Why must we obey the ten commandments if Jesus died for our sins?

Question: I was told that you must please God if you want to have paradise after life, therefore you should follow the Ten Commandments, but then what does that mean about Jesus? I realized he died for our sins but I thought you had to follow the Ten Commandments? I'm really confused so if someone could please help me thanks.
Comment: Paul explains in Romans that the no one can ever please God enough through works.  It is all by faith.
Comment: Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead and you shall be saved.  He who loves God commits no sin.  Christ is the doorway not the ten commandments.
Comment: In my Prison ministry I found this to be a common question. While it is not as prevalent in society it is quite common in communities where benevolence is rare, and nothing comes without a price, Many who are used to that environment have a hard time with understanding God's grace.
Comment: Why would they be mutually exclusive?  Part of Jesus' purpose was to bring the knowledge of God to the Gentiles, who without his death and so on and thus Christianity would not have even had the 10 commandments.
Answer: I think your answer lies in The Threefold Uses of the Law, and more specifically, Romans 7:1,11,24

1 Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." ... 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ... 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

In brief, the Law was meant to show us our sin. While it is required that you obey The Law, you are, by your nature, unable to (Romans 8:7). This is the hopeless estate of man. Jesus saves us by accomplishing two things:

He perfectly obeys the Law, providing obedience that we are missing and
He suffers the penalty for our sin.

That is termed Christ's active and passive obedience, active obedience being obeying the whole moral law of God (not only the Ten Commandments) and passive obedience being his obedient suffering on the cross.
The natural reaction, as was the reaction of Erasmus to Luther, is, if we are saved by Christ's work, and need not obey the Ten Commandments, then do we not then give license to evil behaviour? This is the argument in Romans 6:1, and the answer is, "By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"
What Paul says in Romans 6:2 is that if we are truly changed by Holy Spirit, we have spiritually died with Christ and been raised to new life in Christ, then our nature (that nature which causes us to sin) will remain in our flesh but replaced in our spirit, and so we are regenerate and changed, still struggling with sin, but hating sin. We see this in Romans 7:25.
May I say, you've touched on the heart of the Gospel, but provoked some of the deeper theological nuances surrounding it. May I encourage you to find someone you can sit with in a coffee shop and do a study of Romans? Maybe pick up Martin Luther's commentary on Romans?
Answer: Hebrews 11:6 tells us how to please God, and it's not through the Ten Commandments. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
None of us can please God through the Law, however: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Romans 3:19). In other words, the law shows us that we are sinners and we need an alternate way to please God, and that's when faith enters in. Through faith all of us may be saved (Romans 4:16), because all of us have been given a measure of faith.
So to please God, read the Bible, believe that through it Jesus speaks to you, and obey what it says to the best of your understanding.
Answer: Disclaimer: This answer is from a Wesleyan soteriological perspective.
Upon reading previous answers to this question, you could be forgiven for thinking that keeping the ten commandments is no longer necessary.  Such a view would be entirely false.  As has been already expressed in different ways, the law was given that we might know our sinful condition before God and turn to Christ for our salvation. The promise of salvation however, includes us receiving a new heart that is inclined towards fulfilling God's perfect law:

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19,20 NIV)

As well as God empowering believers to do this, the bible makes it clear that they must co-operate rather than resist the working of the Holy Spirit in this regard. Thus, Jesus instructs His disciples:

If you love me, keep my commands. (John 14:15 NIV)
Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV)

And Stephen identified the problem with His persecutors as:

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you (Acts 7:51 ESV - emphasis added)

It's not that keeping the commandments are a pre-condition for us receiving the free gift of salvation through faith in Christ, but keeping them are a necessary sign that we have in fact received this gift - otherwise, our 'faith' is proven false, self-deceptive and worthless.  The Scriptures and the Holy Spirit give no assurance of salvation to those 'who practice lawlessness':

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:22-25 ESV)

The 'perfect law' is summed up in the great commandment and its corollary:

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV)

It is greater than (a higher standard), but necessarily includes the ten commandments. In summary:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:3-6 ESV)
Answer:
And one of them, versed in the Law, tested him by asking: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 He said to him: "'You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 The second, like it, is this: 'You must love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets."
  (Matthew 22:35-40 NWT)

Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God and neighbor.
If you love God, you will not do the things that he hates like murder and stealing. If you love your neighbors you will not steal from them or hurt them. The law of Christ covers every commandment in the OT and beyond. As we study his word the Bible and learn more about him, we learn the principles found in his word and we are able to follow them. Jesus ransom covers the sacrificial parts and us having love covers the rest so that we don't need a list of do nots because we know what God hates and what would be unloving.

Go on carrying the burdens of one another, and in this way you will fulfill the law of the Christ. (Galatians 6:2 NWT)
Comment: It would be good if you were explicit that you are presenting a JW perspective.
Answer: The original commandment was to not eat of the fruit of the knowledge of function and dysfunction. When a person does eat of this fruit the result is pride and anxiety. The result of pride and anxiety is covetousness, blasphemy, murder, dishonor, alcohol abuse, and much many more things. The Ten Commandments enforce that the result of this pride and anxiety should not be done. Yet the real correction to Pride and Anxiety is Humility and Faith. Therefore, one who has Faith in God and is Humble, does not gain the result of pride and anxiety because they did not become prideful or anxiousness.
Logically then if one is not prideful or anxiousness then the result of being prideful or anxiousness does not occur, so the fulfillment of the law happens by nature. That does not mean that the commandments should be broken. It just means that they wont be broken.


Nginx doesn't rewrite correctly when redirecting to the thin cluster

Question: This is my nginx configuration:
upstream local_thin_cluster {
    server 127.0.0.1:3000;
    server 127.0.0.1:3001;
}

server {
    #listen   80;

    access_log /usr/share/redmine/log/nginx_access.log;
    error_log  /usr/share/redmine/log/nginx_error.log;

    root    /usr/share/redmine/public;
    proxy_redirect  off;

    location / {
        proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header  Host $http_host;

        try_files $uri $uri/index.html $uri.html @cluster;
    }

    location @cluster {
        proxy_pass http://local_thin_cluster ;
    }
}

The problem I have is that after login redirection in web application (redmine) I get the address http://local_thin_cluster/my/page.
Everything works fine on thin server.
How can I fix this so that it redirects to the same server_name/ip on which it received request. I could fix it by putting IP instead of local_thin_cluster but I don't want to hard code server_name/ip because I need to install this on several machines and need as simple configuration as possible.
Answer: It started working once I moved @proxy_redirect  off;@ to @location@ section.


Tilestache Multiple Grids results in PostGIS error

Question: I've got a PostGIS database which Mapnik and Tilestache pull from. The mapnik xml has multiple layers as I'm pulling from different tables depending on the zoom - and these different tables have different column names.
The issue is that I'm trying to get around is that it seems using multiple grids within tilestache requires the column names to be the same.
Here's the tilestache cfg:
<code>"grid":
        {
            "provider":
            {
                "name": "mapnik grid",
                "mapfile": "/usr/local/share/maps/style/OSMBright/OSMBright.xml",
                "layers":
                [
                    [0, ["name", "employees"]],
                    [1, ["name", "employees"]],
                    [2, ["id", "employees"]],
                    [3, ["company_name", "employees"]]
                ]
            }
        }
</code>
Zooms at layers 0 and 1 work because they have similar column headers. It fails starting at layer 2:

RuntimeError: Postgis Plugin: ERROR:  column "name" does not exist
  LINE 1: ...LECT ST_AsBinary("geom") AS geom,"employees","id","name"
  FRO...
                                                               ^ in executeQuery Full sql was: 'SELECT ST_AsBinary("geom") AS
  geom,"employees","id","name" FROM ( SELECT geom, id, employees
                FROM blkgrp_2014
              ) AS data
               WHERE "geom" && ST_SetSRID('BOX3D(-10693846.00520928 5028944.964938281,-10684062.06558878 5038728.904558787)'::box3d, 3857)'

For some reason it's looking for the column "name" even though my config has specified to look for "id" - so tilestache is obviously progressively combining the search.
Is there an obvious solution to this? Or do I just add a null value column to each table so the column names match? Seems hacky...
Answer: Looks like there's a pending merge request from 4 years ago that fixes this issue. I just updated my mapnik.py file to reflect these changes and it worked.
Tilestache Pull Request


How is reduced alcoholic beer made?

Question: How is low/no alcohol beer made? I'm assuming that the beer is made normally and the alcohol is then removed, is it any more than just boiling it off? I've noticed that no/low alcohol beers' taste improved hugely a few years ago, is this due to a new technique?
Answer: There are a couple of ways to do that.
The two main "approaches" are to extract the alcohol afterwards or just don't allow the generation of it.
The extracting part can be achieved by filtering and reverse osmosis. Alcohol and water are getting sucked out and the "beer mass" gets re-watered. These steps may affect the taste quit a bit. A few brewers (especially in Germany) have developed a "top secret" technique to brew a alcohol free beer which tastes the same as "normal" beer - but most of these are "top secret".
Latest science experiements revealed a new way of brewing alcohol free beer, by just stopping the fermentation process. This can be done by lowering the temperature of the liquid containers.
Beers brewed with this technique tend to taste more sweet.
Both method have their up and downs so a couple brewers combined both: Less fermentation than usual and extracting the extra bits of alcohol.
Comment: Could you elaborate on how reverse osmosis, and not just filtering is applied to this? Do you have any sources?
Answer: I recently went on a tour of a microbrewery and had a conversation with a brewer afterwards. He said that their approach for reducing the alcohol content to legal "non-alcoholic" levels was to simply dilute regular beer with purified water.
It may be worth noting that the beer he was talking about was not designated for drinking, but for use in food production (beer-battered fish sticks, anyone?).
Answer: Reduced alcoholic beer has been developed by using an advanced development of the process known as vacuum distillation at low temperature (which is the most traditional and is less aggressive of any alcohol extraction methods), by using this sophisticated process the beer doesn't suffer any temperature or pressure aggression.

How is reduced alcoholic beer made?


Raspbian lxde desktop misbehaving

Question: Installed raspbian on 8gb miroSD card booted with 5v and 0.7A power supply, rpi boots well and works.
when i pluged in an headphone, the cursor freezed. I restarted and everything worked well and when i was about to shutdown by typing in shutdown command. The lxde desktop was misbehaving
new terminal windows were opening when i didn't even click anything, new windows, dialog boxes were opening. Is this because of lxde desktop bugs or low power supply ?
Comment: Have you another power supply to try?
Comment: I have a flextronics 5V 1A power adapter but when i tried it rpi kept rebooting.   http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/24193/raspberry-pi-b-first-boot                                 I used my LG phone charger 5.1V 0.7A it stopped rebooting and i was able to login. I guess the description on adapter was wrong. Everything was fine but, when i tried to shutdown this happened.
Answer: From what I have seen and heard in multiple places, this is most probably a problem with your supply. Many times as you were saying the description of the adapter is not the same as what it actually outputs because of faulty hardware. I do not know which model you have but many of the models need at least around 700ma so there is not much room for error there. I would highly suggest getting a solid high amp adapter for the Pi which you will want in any case for other power hungry projects.

Raspbian lxde desktop misbehaving


What is the best way to use extended contests in Gumshoe?

Question: I need a good, solid mechanic for extended contests in GUMSHOE. An ideal one would work for a wide variety of situations, such as chases and cat-and-mouse games.
Answer: I would treat them like combats. That mechanism is there already, so it's worth using it, if we can. Give both parties a pool like Health, but specific to the contest.
For example, for a psychic duel, use Stability instead of Health. We attack exactly as in the rules (using, perhaps, Magic to attack instead of Scuffling), but take damage from Stability.
For chases and cat-and-mouse games, I'd vary it slightly: instead of a pool for each person, I'd have one between the two. One person adds to it, the other depletes it.
For example, for a car chase, we'd have a Distance pool. It starts at 10. Let's say you're chasing me: you're in a car, I'm on foot.
When you "attack" successfully (using your Driving skill), you roll 1d6 and subtract it from Distance. When I "attack" successfully (using either Athletics or Fleeing), I add to the pool.
If the pool gets to zero, you catch me. If its gets to twice its original value, I get away.
Answer: Well, there is an extended contest mechanic already. Each participant takes it in turns to use appropriates skills (eg Driving vs Athletics with a migo chasing a car) against a Difficulty, usually 4. Both sides can spend points before the roll as usual. This continues until one sides fails.
Answer: Robin Laws just came out with a rule for Bid Contests that might work quite nicely.

In a bid contest, each character
  decides how many points they'll spend
  from their individual pools. The
  player(s) and/or GM write this number
  down on a slip of paper.  It may never
  exceed the number of points the
  character has to draw on from the pool
  or pools relevant to the action at
  hand. When bidding from multiple
  pools, specify which points come from
  which pools.
Comment: I like this rule. It works well with poker chips to represent pool points.


Microsoft Word Read-Only Document - Avoid Unwanted Tab Space

Question: I have a read-only Microsoft Word (docx) document that has (in addition to explanatory read-only text) a few editable forms. In one of these forms, there are two columns. Each column has a non-editable label. To the right of each label there is an editable form input.
<code>Name: __________  Title: ___________
                  Address: ____________
                  Phone #: ______________
</code>
You can see how "Name", "Title", "Address" and "Phone #" are the uneditable labels, and to the right of them there is a form input.
Now, my problem is that when I enter a name of a certain length in the "Name" input, it causes the "Title" label to indent if it reaches a certain length. This causes the "Title" label to be uneven with the labels in the same column below it. It is a professional document and this looks quite unprofessional.
My question is, how can I avoid the tab-indent on "Title"? There is plenty of space between the "Name" label and the "Title" input. The character input does not run into the "Title label". But for some reason Word sees fit to indent "Title". Keep in mind that this is a read-only document and I am constrained by this fact.
Thanks,
ktm
Answer: I know you can make pdf documents with editable forms. Learn how to do it here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/206746.html


Letting 'every process run until it is blocked' on an Erlang node

Question: (Also available on Erlang's mailing list.)
Is it possible to write a function that waits for every process running on an Erlang node to reach a point where it is blocked, waiting for a message?
The function should return only when every process is waiting for a message that has not yet been sent to it. Assume that no process is in a time-related suspension (receive with an after clause, timer-related operations etc). The process running this function is, of course, excluded.
Obviously wrong answer:
erlang:yield/0: This gives a chance to every other process to run, but not necessarily until it is blocked.
Answer: Not 100% correct approach:
only_one_not_waiting() ->
  Running =
    [P || P <- processes(), process_info(P, status) =/= {status, waiting}],
  length(Running) == 1
end.

everyone_blocked() ->
  case only_one_not_waiting() of
    true -> ok;
    false -> everyone_blocked()
  end.

Ignoring timers, running only_one_not_waiting/0 repeatedly until it returns true (as everyone_blocked/0 does) should indicate the desired system state, if this state is eventually reached.
However I am not sure how much trust one should put on the return value of process_info(P, status).


Can an intent to open the camera specify a prefix to the names of any photo's taken?

Question: I understand that there are apps that make renaming easy but would it be possible to specify the photo name actually before taking the photo? If so would this also work with an app that allows the user to take multiple photo's before returning to the app, rather than the one photo most apps allow. Sorry for the newb question!
Answer: Yes. The app that starts the intent (i.e. the app with the "take photo" button) is responsible for choosing a file name and creating the file. It then puts that file's URI (its path) in the intent. The camera app then opens that file, writes the photo to it, and gives a result back to the first app.
The upshot of this is that it's up to the calling app (the one with the "take photo" button) to give you a way to set the file name, if they want to do that. The file name will take effect whatever camera app you use.
The intent protocol doesn't provide a way for the calling app to ask for more than one photo, so there's no way for an app to offer this feature without launching the camera app several times in succession.
If you're interested in the details, the official Android developer documentation describes it, with code examples.
Answer: You could try  Preset camera  I found this on Google Play and it claims:
Summary (I've left in the spelling and punctuation mistakes as they appear on the Play Store):
You can preset the settings about picture. Frames,filters,the name of the folders,the name of files.
After you preset the settings,pictures you take will be reflected to the setting.
This application is very convenience when you take a picture in continuous, or take a picture of fixed location or object.
You have no stress to edit the pictures because your settings reflect to all the pictures you take automatically.

As I can't tell if you want to do this programatically (which is outside the remit of this site), here is the answer to it in code:  Stack Overflow Android - Taking photos and saving them with a custom name to a custom destination via Intent


Broken Python installation on CentOS 5.8

Question: I already searched for solution to my problem via Google and serverfault's search facility, but haven't found anything related specifically to my case.
Here's the problem: I needed python 2.7.3 on CentOS 5.8 machine which has only python 2.4.3 preinstalled. Also neither there's the suitable version in it's repositories nor I can upgrade installed version. That's why I decided to build python from source code. But I've made a mistake: instead of make altinstall I did make install thus changing default version of the current installation. It was before I found this article - How to install Python 2.7.3 on CentOS 6.2 . I guess 5.8 and 6.2 versions aren't different to the extent this article is inapplicable. After installation of new python version I installed pip, but once I tried to invoke it, I got "No module named pkg_resources" error. In order to solve this issue I installed setuptools from repository. But it had only led to another error: "Distribution Not Found". My final step was to follow the guide I posted the link to, but I was unable to perform last step: easy_install-2.7 virtualenv command threw "-bash: /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7: .: bad interpreter: Permission denied" error. Now when I try to invoke pip or pip-2.7 both commands raise the same error with different names of binaries after "-bash:".
Is there any way to fix this problem, so I could install new python version (2.7.3) alongside with the preinstalled one (2.4.3) according to the guide? Any help will be appreciated.
P.S.: yum is working fine, although it needs python to function, so I hope the damage I unknowingly caused isn't very severe. Also I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize for possible occasional grammatical and/or spelling errors.
Answer: First I'd try going back to the directory you ran the initial make install and attempt a:
make uninstall.
If that doesn't work you are going to need to remove it manually. You can figure out what path it took by looking at the make file or by: make -n install > logfile 2>&1 Then you need to find the python package: rpm -qa | grep python and remove it rpm -e -nodeps <package>. To re-install it: rpm -ivh --force <package>.
Of course this is probably more work than just re-installing the OS, not easy, and not guaranteed to work...


Bas Cohen having relations with a non-Jew

Question: It says in SA YD Siman 305 that a Bas Cohen that has a bechor (firstborn) with a non-Jew there is chiyuv of pidyon haben since the Bas Cohen through having relations with the non-Jew she looses her status of being a Bas Cohen. What about if a not-frum (irreligious) Bas Cohen before becoming a baalas teshuva (religious person) had relations with a non-Jew. Then after becoming frum (religious) later got married to a Yisrael and had a bechor. Is there a chiyuv of making a pidyon haben on that child? (My doubt is because through the relations with the non-Jew before becoming frum perhaps she lost her status of being a Bas Cohen.)
Comment: In [Yalkut Yossef][1], it wrotes in sayif 34 that the child will be chayav of pidion.
However, he wrote in sayif 26 that a woman can lie on her past for chalom bayit and not said that the child is not her first one.

  [1]: http://yalkut.info/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%A8/%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%99-%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA.htm
Comment: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/929263/jewish/Who.htm#footnoteRef1a929263
Answer: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 134:9 clearly indicates that a Bas Kohain who has had relations with a non Jew prior to having a child with a Jew would do a Pidyon HaBen as the relationship is what makes her a Chalal.
Shach Yoreh Deah 305:22 also says that a Bas Kohain who has had relations with a non Jew prior to having a child with a Jew would do a Pidyon HaBen.
Answer: A kohen's daughter does not lose her status as a kohen's daughter by simply having pre-marital sex; she loses it through either marrying a non-kohen or through having his baby. In the event that she marries him and then has a divorce, so long as she was never pregnant she regains her former status and all of its privileges.
Comment: You're conflating having a baby with being pregnant: do you know which of them is the relevant criterion? And do you have a source for the answer, please?
Comment: If she is pregnant for more than forty days it makes no difference if she miscarries later, any subsequent son will not be a *bechor*. There are plenty of sources; I apologise for the fact that I've not the time to source them now. I'm not writing an answer for the points, but merely for the purposes of responding. When I've time I'll edit my answer and add some.
Comment: If she has a child with a non-kohein and then the child dies many years later, she still reverts back to being a bat kohein for terumah.


"Prior Art" and "Public Domain" synonyms?

Question: Should the "Prior Art" and "Public Domain" tags be made synonyms of each other? Or is it separate enough and distinct that they should remain separate tags?
Answer: I would leave them separated.

Not all prior art must be in the public domain. Consider an active patent, which could count as prior art.
Not all questions about public domain materials (even within the scope of this site) are related to prior art. Consider questions about how patent documents enter the public domain, or what that may mean to the patent holders.
Comment: Good points which I had not considered.
Comment: Conversely there are several types of secret prior art that are not currently available to the public.   A further complication is that there are two different systems in play now and for many years as we will have patent applications filed before and after the changes in rules put in place by the America Invents Act which made changes.


Baking time difference in pyrex versus metal

Question: What baking time is optimal for recipes that are done in pyrex for banana bread versus metal baking dish?
Comment: Very similar to [Baking in Glass Loaf Pan](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/5117) and [Should I be able to make a tarte tatin in a glass dish?](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/7693)
Answer: Time is only a rough indication of whether any dish is "done", the biggest 'unknown factor' from your question is, "what temp are you baking at?".
I would suggest you use the following 3 tests to determine when your banana bread is done (regardless of whether you are using pyrex or metal):

The bread is very brown and solid on top
A toothpick or chopstick inserted into the bread comes out completely dry. (Even a few moist crumbs are evidence that your bread is not done.)
The bread has reached an internal temperature of 195°F to 205°F (90°C-95°C)

Each condition should be met in order, so don't bother with the toothpick until you see the rich brown color, then once the toothpick is clean, check the internal temp.
Answer: Everything Cos Callis indicates about times being approximate, and how to test if the banana bread is done is true.
However, there is a general pattern of the difference between glass an metal baking pans that is direct consequence to how ovens cook the food.   Baked goods will typically cook somewhat faster in the glass pan, than in metal.
There are two ways to compensate for this:

Some people lower the temperature by about 25 F to make the time come out more evenly.
The other options is to watch the item closely to see when it is done, which may be somewhat earlier than in a metal pan.

Since what is most often baked in glassware are quick breads and savory dishes, neither of which are terribly sensitive, it really isn't something that needs to be worried about deeply.
It is a far larger factor with cookies, but they are almost never cooked on glass.  Still, you can see the same effect because cookies bake faster on dark cookie sheets than light colored ones.

The reason that items cook faster (at a given temperature) in glass is that the major mode of heat transmission in an oven is infrared radiation, which is a form of light (with a wavelength too long to see, so it is invisible).   This is the same reason holding your hand near an old style incandescent light bulb without touching it would still feel warm.
Glass pans are transparent to infrared, so all of the radiant heat is pretty well applied to the food.  Metal pans are more reflective, so some reflects off.  The darker the pan, the more they absorb, and the more quickly the food cooks.
This is not to say that convection and conduction to not also cook the food, but they are a lesser factor.


Registrar forgot to renew my domain name after I paid the invoice

Question: I got a hosting package with one of the lead shared hosting providers, and transferred to them a domain name I have had for over five years. Last September I received their email alert to renew the domain, I paid the annual fee as well as the privacy fee to hide personal details in the whois. About three months later I check the domain and find a Chinese page has taken over. Suspecting hacking I contacted the hosting customer support, and long story short, they failed to renew my domain name with their registrar, even though they acknowledge the payment was received and the invoice is there to confirm. As the domain expired 60 days after their failure to renew, and was claimed by somebody else, they say they can't do absolutely nothing on this case, and basically told me to swallow it and chose another domain name and move on. What are my options here?
Comment: Moot point but... "As the domain expired 60 days after their failure to renew" - technically, it "expired" at the point it was due for renewal (at which point the site would not have been accessible). The "60 days after" is the grace + redemption periods, after which time it is publicly available for anyone to register.
Answer: As the domain was not renewed, anyone was free to register it, and the previous registrar or registrant can do nothing about it. There is nothing to do there, your domain is lost, except if you get a deal with its current owner to sell it back to you.
The above shows that sometimes it might be best to register domain names by yourself. This does not impact where you host the web/mail/etc services on top of it. But if you give your trust to a company to do everything on your behalf you should at least monitor what they are doing very closely, specially on important assets (you can always start over with another domain name but you lose of course of publicity existing on the previous one). Note that they are providers monitoring domain names (among other things) and being able to notify you if some of yours are close to expiration or expired, which may show an impending danger.
This may be a valid course to do right now specially if you continue to do business with them and let them handle your domain names because what proof/guarantee do you have that this negative even will not repeat itself in the future?
As now about your relationship with this specific company: I would first start to reread the contract you signed with them. There are probably provisions covering issues like the one you had and, especially if it is a US company, I fear that you may have sections basically  exonerating them for everything, and hence giving you no recourse. Do you have at least a clear statement from them where they acknowledge they explicitly did wrong? I would at least press for some sort of indemnification like at least some free services.
Of course, you could also decide to "vote with your feet" and at the very least move all your services elsewhere and never do business anymore with this company. If you are so inclined or can prove some significant amount of losses due to this, you always have the option to go into court, if you have the appropriate lawyer to advise you. But as said before you need first to reread the contract you signed, specifically for the domain name you registered through them.
Comment: Thanks for your answer. How can I register domain names by myself? I thought I had to go through an ICANN authorized domain seller like Godaddy and such.
Comment: You need to use an ICANN accredited registrar (for gTLD) or a registry accredited registrar for a given ccTLD. Any hosting provider is not necessarily a registrar it may just use one. So when you buy a webhosting package from some company it may or may not include a domain and you may or not go register a domain yourself separately and then tie it to your webhosting package. Rules and prices will of course differ, and you will have to handle 2 providers instead of one, etc.
Answer: I'm not an attorney (disclaimer)....
You might be able to get the DNS back, but it will depend on a few things and how far you want to take it. The following list may be directly affected by the laws in your country (I am in the U.S.):

shhhhh! Keep quiet about this. Don't name names or talk about the specifics online or anywhere else -- for now.
Save 3 copies of all of your documentation (seperately, like on
thumb drives, or a CD, etc) Keep 1 in a secure place (ex: safe deposit box), 1 goes to your Attorney (see step 3), and 1 for yourself.
Interview for an Attorney. You want to find someone knowledgable enough about the internet and domain issues that they won't be scrambling to understand the issue and the laws surrounding it.
Back up copies of all of your online documents (it may be prudent to find another hosting company).
Evaluate the money you have spent over the last 5 years to establish, promote, and distribute your website using this particular domain. Then try to assess how much loss you have suffered. And how much revenue you would lose for the duration of the time it would realistically take to re-establish your "presense" online.
Have your Attorney contact: the company that bought the DNS to find out how much it would cost for you to buy back the DNS, the hosting company about making this "right", First contact is typically a letter.
Follow up with your Attorney regarding the responses they receive and decide how you want to procede: settle, sue, drop it, etc.
Follow through on your decision: If you drop it, then steps 1-6 were a waste of time. If you settle, the hosting company is paying you to "go away", but they often ask you to "sign a non-disclosure agreement first" (remember, step one was not blabbing about the company and specifics). If you sue, the hosting company may be liable for lost revenue, and the cost of buying back the DNS, Attorney and court fees... possibly more.

There are other things that you will have to consider while you are doing this. Sueing a big company can be difficult. They have more resources and (possibly) a team of experienced Attorneys. Listen to your Attorneys advice, but make your own decision(s). Good luck.
Comment: Even if you sue the provider that forgot to renew the domain and even if you win, nor you or them can do anything towards the previous registrar and the registry as they did nothing wrong, and the fact that the domain is elsewhere now is not their fault. So I really doubt there is anything you can do to reclaim the domain name that way (you can only try to buy it from its current registrant, without any guarantee).
Comment: @PatrickMevzek You can still seek damages from the hosting company, who was negligent in failing to do what they were contractually paid to do.
Comment: Yes, I never said the contrary, see my own answers but even with millions gained in damages you may not be able to get back the domain name (current registrant may not want to sell it no matter what and there is nothing to force him). You start your answer by "you might be able to get the DNS (sic) back" which I do not agree with in the sense that it does not depend at all on the fact that you sue the company or not.
Comment: @PatrickMevzek Getting the domain back doesn't depend on you sueing the hosting company, but the lawsuit can include the necessary funds to buy back the domain from the new owners. It doesn't mean you will get the domain back, but instead that the hosting company could be liable for whatever the new domain owners might be willing to sell the domain for (if they are willing to sell it). Hence, "you **might** be able to get it back".
Comment: Or you could do the other way around, first (try to) get back the domain and then try to recoup the amount from the sued company. Seller will not give you an amount to pay that will last for months during the suing and even more if it knows about that it may just decide to inflate the numbers. Specifically if you throw attorneys immediately into the mix, a seller may be tipped off by that and change its strategy for a reverse effect on the prospective buyer. I will rest my case there.
Comment: Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I hope it is also useful for others in a similar situation. Unfortunately I didn't have a commercial site generating revenue under that domain, so I hardly can justify financial loses or claim compensation, but I appreciated that domain name anyway and losing it from no fault on my part hurts. I'd stop doing business with them and I'll try to get a prorated refund on the hosting time I won't be using.


Question closed because moderators did not actually read it

Question: I've got this question: predisposition towards organising information in hierarchical outlines? closed, with the explanation that it "would be better suited for softwarerecs.stackexchange.com" which is plain absurd! I have only mentioned software to illustrate how some people think in given cognitive tasks, I have nowhere asked about any software recommendation of any kind. Obviously the mods have not cared to read the question, save for taking a superficial glance over it, which is very discouraging :( I had raised the issues in the comments below the closing notification and I have received no answer.
Answer: Oh I've read it. And it's not closed, just put on hold. I thought, and still think it's a programming question. If you can reword it and give it a more solid psych or neuro content we're happy to reopen it. As of now the premise is more computer science imo. Questions can be put on hold rather quickly at times, which aids in keeping the unanswered question pool in check. Questions on hold are not closed. It's just a way to encourage edits.
Comment: No trolling here. I'm answering your question here, and I'm just trying to help. Calling someone a troll doesn't help at all. It seems you're taking this quite personally.
Comment: How could a question about the brain's inclination to organize information in one way or another have to do with programming and nothing to do with cognitive psychology?
Comment: I do not see any reason to edit a completely legal (for the psychology forum) question just to suit the trolling moderators who love to moderate but not care to read. This kind of mod behaviour has been Stackexchange's deepest flaw for long time. I am not the first to say it, alas I would most probably not be the last, too :(
Comment: @ AliceD I did not have you in mind when I mentioned trolling. What I had in mind was the superficial and rushed moderation which is not uncommon on Stackexchange and does not make it a better place.
Comment: @drabsv - and what I have in mind for this site is to keep it in shape. I'm, again, inviting you to edit the post. Putting stuff on hold is not the end of the world you know. Have a sneak peak in [garbage valley](https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2091/is-there-a-community-interest-in-bringing-the-answered-questions-to-a-healthy-9/2096#2096). I'm one of the people, among others, with a long-term dedication to tackle it. Unfortunate for you, your question is on the boundary of adding to it. Again, please edit, it's not a definitive closure.
Comment: @ AliceD as far as I can see the question is closed and not on hold. What exactly do you suggest that I edit on this question? My claim is that moderators have failed to read carefully the question before closing it and that it is completely legitimate, therefore I claim that moderators have to edit their decision, not me my question. If you show me what exactly is wrong with either the essence or wording of the questions, of course, I'd be glad to do so.
Comment: The question is now closed because it has been on hold for quite a while. There have been tons of suggestions made to improve the question.
Comment: @  AliceD I am sorry but "If you can reword it and give it a more solid psych or neuro content " is not a suggestion, just a vague blanket statement. If I were a moderator I could close any sort of question with blank statements such as this one. The only specific suggestion I've seen was the one to put this question on softwarerecs.stackexchange.com which is absurd and proves that moderators have not even cared to read the question. Is it that hurtful for moderators to admit that they have been superficial over closing a question and that they should reopen it?
Answer: I'm glad you're asking for help to improve your question. I think you misunderstood the close vote reason.
Why I recommended Software Recommendations
I voted to close it off-topic because I honestly thought you were asking two questions in one post. I thought the first one was asking for a specific functionality in Microsoft Word and the second one was asking about hierarchical organization in general. I could have been more clear in my comment. I'm sorry if it felt dismissive. I expected the actual mods to come in and offer clarification, which I'm thankful they did. However, I shouldn't depend on this expectation.
Why your question is closed
Your question was closed as not being framed in psychology or neuroscience. You can read more about it in this meta post.
To make an answerable question on this site, you need to do a bit more than give an example of a human behaviour. Humans are weird and there are lots of explanations for the same behaviour depending on the analytical approach. For example, comparisons between preferences between tagging/hierarchical organization could be looked at in terms of personality or IQ. However, assuming all perspectives are equally valid makes for a lot of research to go through for someone to write a satisfactory answer. Consequently, it helps to be specific as possible and to ground your understanding in some prior knowledge. This is was Steven Jeuris was proposing by grounding the question in it's physical analog of the desk and the study of this in the context of HCI and affordances.
Alternatively, if you wanted to avoid getting lost in research, this question could have been broken down into smaller parts. First, asking for research about the use of tagging systems and searching through them in HCI. Then using the references from the first question as framing for a comparison with hierarchical organisation.
I hope this further, more specific, advice is helpful to you.
Answer: Your question was poorly written such that it was unclear to people what you were trying to go after.
You gave a lot of extraneous background and then settled on "Is there any research on specific inclinations people have towards organising information?" - which is an incredibly broad and ill-defined question (what is a specific inclination? What does it mean to organize information?).
Instead, your question seems like a rant about a piece of software not including a feature you would prefer, followed by "Does psychology explain this?" We have decided that these sorts of questions that lack research effort are not on topic here.


What is the Leica look?

Question: What is the Leica look that fans of the company claim is unique to them? What concrete differences are there that are most obvious to a layman?
Comment: Has anyone ever shown that there actually is a "Leica Effect" via blind testing?
Comment: There's something related to this, I think, in answers to: [What performance-related factors make a Leica camera so expensive?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/q/14555/17441)
Comment: I have a feeling that it's the same thing as the emperor's new clothes.
Comment: I just remembered something- the more expensive a wine drinker _thinks_ the wine is the more he or she likes it. Given how expensive Leicas are and that research, I think we have our answer.
Comment: IMHO: Don't drink the Leica Koolaid. They make good lenses, but nothing that justifies their price. The price is the only way to market to rich people.
Answer: I think there were a number of real reasons for 'a look', and most of those no longer apply...but others may have taken their place.
The real ones IMHO are historic.
35mm Changed Photography
Leica invented 35mm and suddenly a lot of professional reportage and suchlike became infinitely more portable. This meant that there were Leica type photographs, that had nothing to do with the quality of the image.
35mm Changed Image Quality
'Actual' image quality actually took a nosedive with 35mm, but so long as this was factored...it could be said it was not 'worse' but 'different'.
Grain increased but portability meant reduced use of lights and more pushed ASA/ISOs for motion shots. The result for street or war photography was a texture. Meanwhile where film speed was not so critical, 35mm was still sufficient to capture fairly grain-free images. We should remember analogue crystal grain can be attractive in a way that digital noise never shall.
Silver Nitrate
At the time Leica was making its name in the '40s and '50s as the only 35mm pro system, I understand monochrome media used far higher concentrations of silver nitrate than later film. Images from that time (the actual prints, not scans on a monitor) have a luminance and quality that I think was lost in later film. As such, by the time all the other pro 35mm systems came out they could not match the old Leica images ..the 'Leica look'...but here's the crunch...nor now could Leica!
Non-Coated Lenses
The Olympus OM-1 was perhaps the next game changer, it was actively designed to knock Leica off its pedestal and largely succeeded in professional circles. It actually fits the Leica case, up to but of course not including, the pentaprism and was originally called the M1 until Leica objected. It too had uncoated lenses and again IMHO matches the 'Leica look' allowing for the fact the silver nitrate was now reduced for all.
So what then is the latter day 35mm Leica look? A high-performing professional uncoated lens, but I disagree that this has to be particularly sharp. What it has to do is have a very good bokeh, good contrast, and a fast aperture.
Prime Lenses
Most Leica owners seem to stick to a prime. In contrast, most SLR owners these days tend to use a zoom. Zooms are slower than primes, so you lose the narrow depth of field the prime offers and they generally render less well.
Also the zoom means many fail to really get up close to their subject...so this can make the image appear flatter and relatively lifeless. IMHO it was a sad day Olympus added zooms to their OM system.
Uncoated Lenses
Uncoated lenses were superior for monochrome but had issues for colour. Leica tends to go with monochrome a lot.
I tend to use uncoated lenses on my DSLR when shooting monochrome and even on digital I think it does make a difference, but like the notion that a modern Leica has an inherent look, I might be kidding myself! It definitely makes a vast difference shooting infrared. Most modern lenses, irrespective of quality, are plagued with issues on an infrared DSLR.
TODAY
I think a modern photograph on a Leica has no more of a special look than any other professional camera with a professional prime in the same kind of price band. Any suggestion that it is superior is almost certainly just that many compare the images with those taken on comparatively budget kit and usually shot with a zoom. Likewise anyone investing in a Leica would have to be pretty serious about their photography and probably fairly experienced...so the typical Leica shot is not really comparable with the typical shot of a consumer camera.
A FORMAT COMPARISON
Today we see micro four thirds creating pro solutions on tiny sensors with many pros rejecting the pro claim because of this. Noise increases, resolution diminishes, "negative" size is limited at around 16mpx and one needs twice as fast lenses to get compsrably shallow depth of field, just as was the case moving from medium or large format to 35mm, if we can claim that was ever achieved.
As such, within MFT, "Acme Camera Co."  charged the Earth but made only top notch super fast lenses and made super compact portable bodies by exploiting the small formar..they'd be a Leica scenario for today. Pretty soon people would talk of an "Acme look".
Personally I find the Leica M series  actually feel bulky, even " vlunky" today. I used an M2 for a while and have to say it never came close to the joy of the Olympus fitted with an f/1.2 lens, though the rangefinder was incredibly bright ( unlike on a series lll or its Russian clones, and worked a treat.
Answer: Insofar as the Internet has decided this...
The Leica look is a low depth-of field image, with sections that are out of focus. Point light sources turn into well-formed circles, and other out-of-focus forms are modified by a similar blur effect. A quick Google Image search for "leica bokeh" is illustrative here.
In terms of stereotype, it doesn't hurt if it's a high-contrast black-and-white candid street photo, showing off the film's dynamic range and alluding to the camera's history in the "street photography" genre. :P
Leica makes high-quality lenses with good capabilities (fast, low-distortion, etc) ...  but so do plenty of other people. To some extent the Leica look is just a little bit of showing off with a good lens. But the configuration of the glass and aperture that produces the blur in out-of-focus areas is the hardest to replicate.
Comment: @mattdm well, you did ask...
Comment: Since the results of a Google image search change over time, could you be more specific about what exactly that search is illustrative of?
Comment: Nope.... sorry.
Comment: It's hard to see how the results of your search are more illustrative than results of a search for, say, *canon bokeh*.
Answer: Just to give another (maybe wrong) view on this, I think what is being referred to as the Leica look is a mixture of subjective and objective things.
There are some photographers that are so used to review, make, create, and study pictures taken with Leica lenses and cameras that can identify the lens a picture was taken with. I know it may seem disturbing, but there are people that work every day with photos, and, if they happen to have a bias for Leica, they take great attention and study of these things (i.e. the subtle differences of images produced by Leica). This may be seen as the subjective part.
The objective part is that there are relatively few Leica lenses, and of course they share much in terms of design, designer, and glass type used, so inevitably they share some of character in terms of color reproduction and bokeh. Whatever is the Leica look, it is produced by that set of lenses.
Hope to help here.
Comment: I find it very hard to believe that there are people that can identify images made by Leica lenses. What would they look for? How much CA there is and possible distortion? Perhaps the quality of the colour rendition? The better lenses of today are very well corrected and unless the photographs are depicting charts for precise measurements I recon it's next to impossible to determine the exact lens used. You may indeed be right, but I'd really like some hard evidence of this if you have it.
Comment: I posted on Meta on whether this question should be allowed because the questioner has provided no evidence that there is a "Leica Look". And come to think of it, such a study would also include why the LL is diferent.
Answer: I think different people will have different definitions, but the so called Leica look has been often associated with the look produced by lenses created by Walter Mandler. No lens is perfect and each designer needs to decide their priorities and set of compromises they are willing to make. Mandler selected the compromises in a way that differed from mainstream manufacturers and achieved a distinct look, also known as "Leica glow".
Comment: In the level of correction of optical aberrations, where correction of one problem can introduce another one and the designer needs to decide where they want to go (and what they can afford wrt. size and cost). Mandler lenses have likely lower correction of spherical aberration, which leads to smooth look of out of focus areas and a specific look especially around edges. But the Leica look is most likely not in one design decision, it appears more complex. As far as testing of perceived IQ, I don't know if and how Leica tests this. I think these things are kept in a small, closed group.
Comment: What compromises did he make and what tests did he do wrt perceived image quality?
Answer: There are a lot of non-technical things about the 'Leica look': choice of subject matter, composition and so on.  To a great extent you can achieve these things with any modern camera, although some aspects are easier with something a little more discrete and quiet than a giant (D)SLR.  However it's important to realise that, historically, it was possible to make pictures with a Leica that were extremely hard before it: there are things you can do with a camera you can carry discretely in one hand that are quite hard to do with a camera which you use on a tripod, especially in a world where everyone expected a camera to live on a tripod, and these things were an important component of the 'Leica look' because the Leica was the first camera that let you do that.  Interestingly, today, a Leica is one of the least discrete cameras you can carry: no-one ever comments on my Pentax MX, but a lot of people comment on my Leica!
There are also some technical aspects of the Leica look: 35mm film meant relatively grainy photos and still does mean that.  Black and white means, well, B/W.  A lot of classic pictures made with a Leica were made with Tri-X (but not the modern formulation of Tri-X) which is a fairly fast film so has even more grain and looks like, well, Tri-X.
And perhaps the most important technical aspect: the lenses.  I think the term here is 'Leica glow': this is something you get with a lens which was optically-good by the standards of lenses designed before computers and which is uncoated or at most single-coated: it will have relatively low contrast (good for B/W) and be prone to various sorts of flare aka 'glow'.  It will have good (or, anyway, not-offensive) bokeh.  It will be a prime (optically-good zooms were rare before computer design, and you effectively can't use a zoom with a rangefinder).  It will not be very long or very short because, again, rangefinder: say 28mm to 90mm.  And this in turn reflects back on the kind of pictures that you take, of course.
Answer: The Leica Look: In my opinion only applies to Film cameras, where the final product (Fiber based or RC coated photographic print with an enlarger) is processed with a Negative developed and used by a Leica Camera (Range finder M Leica) The effect that you will see and difficult to describe is the Leica look. In the digital realm (Digital Leica) there are too many variables between the shooting of a photograph, the photoshop processing and final result print that it is difficult to compare and define.
Comment: Hi and welcome to Photo.SE! Unfortunately, your answer does not really answer the quesion `What is the Leica look?`
Comment: I think the implication is "there isn't one", but it'd suit the question and answer format better if you spelled that out.

What is the Leica look?


Task Manager shows 100% CPU utilization, but nothing in process list does

Question: I'm using WinXP, and I notice that in the Task Manager, on the Performance tab my CPU usage is 100%.  But When I go to the Processes tab, and sort by CPU System Idle Process is taking up 90%.  I've double checked that things like AVG anti-virus isn't actively scanning, and that jkdefrag is not defragging.  But I know something is taking CPU cycles, because the machine is very slow.  How do I determine which process is hammering the CPU if it doesn't show in the Process List?
Answer: Make sure that the "Show processes from all users" checkbox is checked at the bottom of the process list in Task Manager, so that all processes are show.
Answer: Process Explorer is a much better tool for inspecting processes than the built-in Task Manager. While it might not answer your question completely, it may give you more insight into the problem.
Comment: +1 Great tool.  This allowed me to see system level services thrashing the hard drive.  SQL Server in particular.
Answer: I was having a similar problem a couple of days ago and it turned out the machine was infected with a Rootkit. Since removal things seemed to have calmed down.