How to remove oil without soap while washing?

Question: How do i clean the oil off my lunch box after just finishing eating my lunch, without utensil soap at my disposal ?
Comment: One approach is using plastic sheer inside lunch box and then putting food on top of it. This will spread oil over plastic sheet instead of lunch box.
Comment: @GC13 If you have an answer, please post it below. Thanks.
Comment: Do you have any other kind of sosp, like hand soap at your disposal?
Comment: How are you getting oil on you lunch box while eating?
Answer: I would try a putting few drops of dishwashing soap on a paper towel, then put that in a Ziploc bag with your lunchbox.
One more idea that I got from cleaning cast iron skillets in my home.  You're not supposed to use soap on a cast iron skillet because it can remove the seasoning.  The recommended way to clean them is to use salt and water.  From what I've seen a paste of salt with a few drops of water will do a pretty good job of removing excess oil from a cast iron skillet, it doesn't take off 100% though.  It would probably also work for your lunchbox, it's kind of abrasive though and would encourage rust depending on the material the lunchbox is made of.
Comment: Nice.  Better than my answer...
Answer: The only things other than soap or detergent that will remove oil during washing are extremely hot water (like genuinely boiling!) or alcohol.  Neither of these is likely to be more available than dishwashing or hand soap when you're washing out your lunch box in the work or school lunch room.
You might explore whether you can get dish detergent in little packets (like the ones with condiments in them from fast food restaurants); you could bring these with you and be able to properly wash your lunch box and utensils each day.
Comment: You have a lot of points on this site, so you probably already know this, but it's risky to say "the only things" or "the only solution" in an answer. This is about lifehacks, after all! Surprising answers are what the site's about. (For example, someone else pointed out that flour absorbs 99% of the oil. That's pretty effective!)
Comment: @BrettFromLA Note the qualification "during washing" -- and also, I'm skeptical about the 99% claim for flour taking up oil.  I doubt anything other than a dedicated degreaser (alone or as an ingredient in a detergent) can do that.
Comment: You're right, I missed that "during washing" qualification. And for my own education, does adding isopropyl alcohol to water while washing actually work on oil? I'm trying to imagine that and I have the sense that it would!
Comment: Depends on the oil, but methanol, ethanol, and isopropyl are all soluble in both polar solvents (like water) and non-polar (like oil and gasoline).  That's why they're used as, for instance, fuel line driers.
Answer:
Paper towel - this will absorb oil 95%
Flour - Spread flour inside lunch box and rub the flour around the
surface. This is best solution as it absorbs most of the oil. Based
on my experience, I would say 99%

To avoid spreading of oil within box surface - keep a aluminium foil (or worst case plastics sheet) inside surface of box before putting food. (This will make you transfer food in another substance, if you want to warm in a microwave. Don't put aluminium foil /plastic wrapper inside microwave and heat)
Answer: A pack of wet wipes or baby wipes followed by drying with a paper towel would be an effective way to clean your cutlery and lunchbox without access to traditional dish washing facilities.
Comment: neat and simple solution...got to try it today.
Answer: i would usually clean my tiffen box using paper towel with little amount of water. We don't need soap to clean the oil.


Are all projection maps in a categorical product epic?

Question: Are all  $\Pi A_\alpha \stackrel{\pi_i}\longrightarrow A_\alpha$ projection maps epic, given that $\Pi A_\alpha$ be the product of $A_\alpha$s? Of course, assuming that the product exists.
Answer: In an arbitrary category, it suffices to have a zero object $0$.
Consider $\pi_i\colon \prod A_j \rightarrow A_i$ and pick an index $n$. Then we have the identity morphism $\mathrm{id}_n\colon A_n\rightarrow A_n$ and to every other object $A_j$ we have the zero morphism $0_{nj}$. By the universal property of the product, we get a morphism $\rho_n\colon A_n\rightarrow \prod A_j$ with $\pi_n\circ \rho_n = \mathrm{id}_n$ and $\pi_j \circ \rho_n = 0_{nj}$ for all other $j$.
Now suppose there exists an object $X$ and $f,g\colon A_n\rightarrow X$ with  $f\circ\pi_n = g\circ\pi_n$.  Then
$$f\circ\pi_n\circ\rho_n = f\circ\mathrm{id}_n = f$$
and
$$g\circ\pi_n\circ\rho_n = g\circ\mathrm{id}_n = g$$
Since $f\circ\pi_n = g\circ\pi_n$, we get $f=g$.
The Wikipedia page on the product states that it is not true for arbitrary categories (without zero, therefore), but I'm not quick to find an example.
Comment: You argument works even if the category does not have a zero object (for example in the category $\textbf{Set}$).  It suffices that there exists at least one morphism between any two objects that make up the product. Then one can still construct a morphism $\rho_n$ which is a right inverse for $\pi_n$.  And that implies that $\pi_n$ is an epimorphism.
Answer: There are counterexamples even in Set: for any non-empty set $X$, the projection $\emptyset \times X \to X$ is not epimorphic. Assuming the axiom of choice, in Set, all counter-examples involve the empty set.
In a universe of sets where the axiom of choice fails, there are products $\prod_\alpha X_\alpha = \emptyset$ where none of the $X_\alpha$'s are empty sets; these would also give counterexamples.
Comment: Ah, of course, this is the most basic example. On the other hand, for sets (or topological spaces, or manifolds), always at least one projection is epic. For schemes this is not the case.
Answer: By duality, the question is equivlent to: Are coproduct inclusions monic? The category of commutative rings provides many counterexamples, here $\sqcup = \otimes$ and $R \otimes 0 = 0$, so that $R \to R \otimes 0$ is not injective (unless $R=0$). A little bit more interesting, we have $\mathbb{Z}/2 \otimes \mathbb{Z}/3=0$, so that here both coproduct inclusions are not monic.
For the algebro-geometric minded reader: There are many non-empty schemes $X,Y$ such that $X \times Y = \emptyset$, so that the projections are not epic ... epic fail!
Answer: Judging by the tag I assume you are referring to the categorical product. In that case here is a small counter example showing that the categorical projections for a categorical product, when it exists, need not be epimorphic. Consider a category with objects $x,y,z$ and the following morphisms (other than the identities). There is precisely one morhpism $z\to x$ and one morhpism $h:z\to y$. It is immediate to verify that in that category $z$ is the product of $x$ and $y$. The projections here are epimorphic but that can easily be changed. Add now a fourth object $t$ together with two morphisms $f_{1,2}:y\to t$ and one morphism $g:z\to t$ with composition of these given by $f_i\circ h=g$. It is easily seen that $z$ is still the product of $x$ and $y$ (because nothing new has $z$ as codomain) but clearly the projection $h:z \to y$ is not an epimorphism. Of course you can tweak things some more to prevent the other projection from being epimorhpic.


The bottom of the printed objects has waves after replacing the nozzle

Question: I had a problem with my nozzle on my homemade printer. The problem was that the nozzle with a 0.4 mm diameter wasn't putting out any plastic. I replaced the nozzle with a 0.2 mm one and now the bottom of my model is looking like this:
I tried to change flow,temperatures and speed.
But nothing helped it keeps making this waves. At the old 0.4 mm nozzle there everything was okay.
Comment: You need to solve the problem (lack of extrusion from nozzle) rather than randomly switching to a different diameter.  Since you're getting output from a smaller nozzle, clearly the 0.4 mm one is clogged.
Comment: @CarlWitthoft - no need to be so harsh! :)  it may be that he did not manage to unclog it and only had a 0.2 mm readily available...
Comment: @CarlWitthoft Why I should stay at the stock nozzle diameter if I want to get different printing quality? That's not what you call randomly
Comment: @Coder_fox because you asked a specific question and implied that you were trying to figure out why your 0.4 mm nozzle wasn't working.   My point is that you should find the root cause or there'll just be more trouble down the road.
Comment: This is a flow issue between speed and temperature, the temperature seems to be too high.
Comment: Replacing your nozzle will allow for more flow. This means that your extruder is now able to push out more filament on the same extrusion multiplier. Slowing down the first layer and turning down the extrusion multiplier with steps of 0.05 will most certainly help fix this problem.
Answer: Without more detail is difficult to say with certainty what the root cause of the problem is, but it looks like too much material is being deposited on the bed.
A few things to try/check:

Make sure the nozzle is not leaking.  If it is, you should see fused plastic coming out from the seal nozzle/hot-end and/or hot-end/heat break and trickling down.  This is often the case when the nozzle hasn't been tightened enough, or it has been changed with the hot-end being cold, or if the internal PTFE tube has been dislodged upwards (does not apply to all-metal hot-ends).
Make sure you changed the appropriate setting for the nozzle diameter.  This is not "flow" it is a separate setting.  If you haven't, your printer is now extruding ~4 times as much filament as it ought.
Recalibrate your nozzle height.  This should be done at each nozzle change, as each nozzle is slightly different from the other, and it is possible your new nozzle now sits too close to the bed.

EDIT: also, the picture is too low-res to be sure, but looking at the skirt, it looks like the extruded plastic comes out in blobs.  If it is not due to leakage, then I would suggest to also check that the filament is not slipping through the gears of the extruder.  If you have access to a suitable thermometer, you could also check that the hot-end temperature is stable at the level it should.
Final thought: have you ever succeeded printing with that filament spool?  It is unlikely, but it may be for example a defective one, or a mis-labelled one (so your printing temperature may be wrong).
Comment: 1. The nozzle is not leaking. 2. I changed the nozzle diameter in the slicing software 3. I recalibrated the bed. I have done this when I installed the new nozzle so that's not the problem.
Comment: @Coder_fox - Maybe obvious question, but... have you also re-calibrated your extruder (https://www.matterhackers.com/articles/how-to-calibrate-your-extruder) in the process?
Comment: Yes I recalibrated it a few times.
Comment: @Coder_fox - see my edits.  Just additional ideas, I may be off-track
Comment: The filament is not slipping and the temperature is ok.And yes I did succeeded with this filament spool all the times with the 0.4mm nozzle. Also I changed the level hight to 0.1mm and now it looks much better. Any suggestions?
Answer: The layer thickness should not be more that 75% of your nozzle diameter: Wavy lines on 1st layer only
Answer: Okay, there are a few potential issues here:
1: your belts are not tight enough. This will cause your bed to shake during printing, giving you wavy first layers.
2: your filament is bad. If you have an inconsistent filament diameter, thus can lead to inconsistent extrusion rates, and cause a wavy appearance.
3: your nozzle is jammed. The nozzle you bought may have something stuck inside of it, leading to underextrusion, which, in some cases, can lead to a wavy appearance.
Comment: If the belts are not tight enough than will speed decreasement help?
Comment: Sure, decreasing the speed would help, but the best solution is to retighten the belts.


How can I make a vocal-based sound effect on OS X

Question: I want to make a simple vocal-based sound effect on OS X.
What software can I use to do this? Is it easy to do with Garage Band? Is there a specific tutorial I should look at?
Comment: Are you looking for something like a vocoder?  See this if you're not sure.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hqvvNcvenU
Answer: This may not be what you were asking, but you can open a terminal and type
say -o out.aiff "Hello World"
to write a sound file with text-to-speech output in it.
Answer: If it is a vocoder you are looking for, the only one I know of for mac is a module inside of Propellerhead Software's Reason (a great piece of software, but not a bargain - $499).  If you go this route, you can record your vocoder track and import it into GarageBand (or Logic).  http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/index.cfm
Comment: As a saide note, Audacity is free, open source and does the job regarding the Vocoder effect, have a look here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Vocoder


Pray only fard rakaat

Question: I have a doubt, can we pray only fard avoiding sunnah rakaat? After visiting several web pages I didn't find one solid answer to my question. I'm not saying that sunnah rakaats are useless but can we avoid them without committing sin?
Answer: Sunnah prayers are those which Prophet (SAW) used to do that, in addition to Fard prayers. Of course they are not obligatory, but the Prophet (SAW) used to do it. Why don't you want to do something which our Prophet (SAW) had done.
You can leave Sunnah prayers when the Fard prayers are about to get Qada (i.e., their time is about to finish). In such case, you should offer Fard prayers before they are Qada.
At a job, would you just meet the bare minimum or work harder to get extra rewards?
Comment: Thank you for your answer but I didn't say that I "want" to avoid sunnah prayers (I used to do them). I had only a doubt and I asked the question just to have a clear view on the topic.
Comment: Brother can you cite any rewards and benefits?
Answer: First of all unless you are Hanafi (who define the fajr sunnah as wajib, which as technical term in other school of fiqh is a synonym of fard, but for hanafis it seems to be less than fard and higher than sunnah muakkadah) you will have five fard/farz= obligatory prayers to pray daily and anything else would be sunnah/nafl: That means it's a voluntary prayer to gain thawab (reward), but if you did not perform it you won't be a sinner. You only will have missed a good deed which may have helped you to mend mistakes you did in the fard/farz prayers. See also this hadith qudsi about the importance of nafl prayers!

A fiqh intermezzo
AFAIK the hanafi school considers the sunnah of sobh/fajr prayer as a fard/farz like and calls it "wajib", maybe because of this hadith.
The Maliki school calls this prayer raghiba رغيبة this means something the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) has intensively asked people to do! They also add as sunan mu-akada the shaf'a (sets of two rak'a's) and witr prayer: So the minimum of nafl could be fajr prayer before the fard and the shaf'a and witr prayer!
So any fiqh school wouldn't reject it if you prayed only the fard/farz prayers, as for the case of wajib prayers (as defined) in case of omission you would be considered a sinner they also should be performed as they would be mandatory. But all of them would strongly recommend you to do some nafl prayers to gain rewards and mend your farz/fard prayers!

On the other hand the Prophet (peace be upon him) was asked a similar question as you may find in Sahih Muslim (another Version), where the Inquirer also asked about only fasting Ramadan etc.
And Allah knows best!

Pray only fard rakaat


Does lossy to lossless make sense in this case?

Question: So, from my understanding audio lossy to lossless conversion is a no no. However, what if I want to edit a lossy file (e.g. change tempo, make cuts etc) and I don't want to lose quality by converting it from lossy to lossy, would converting it to lossless, editing it and saving it as lossless be an acceptable solution?
Comment: Yes. Not only does it make sense, but it's what I'd recommend. The issue isn't so much lossy to lossless (you've already lost what you've lost, now let's not lose any more), but rather people who think that they can recover lost information by converting lossy to lossless.
Comment: @Linuxios - flesh that out a bit & it's *the answer*.
Comment: @Linuxios Awesome, that's what I thought. Thanks!
Answer: It's sort of the best you can do.  "Make cuts" could likely even recompress reasonably without further quality loss if you manage to make the cut exactly in units of the compressor's frame size.  Change tempo is not likely to recompress without further loss.
For JPEG compressed images there are programs which can do some basic operations like rotating, mirroring, and some cutting without inducing further loss: they work on the compression coefficient matrices directly.
I am not aware of anything similar available for audio, and the kind of operations you want to do here also do not seem to map well to that model apart from cutting.
So practically speaking, your path is the best for avoiding further loss but it gives you lossy quality material at nonlossy quality file sizes.
Also if you do editing to clean matters up (like equalizing single instruments), the assumptions of the compression algorithm about what compression artifacts will be inaudible may become wrong.  Which is the reason that lossy compression should always be only the very last step before a production is given to the consumer.  That gives the best compromise between quality impact and file size reduction.
From the examples you cite "tempo change" is such a step: compression algorithms can assume that certain artifacts are hardly detectable if they are transitory and over fast.  Extreme tempo changes could violate that assumption.
But at any rate: you cannot do better than you were planning to do.
Answer: When processing audio data it is the process of "encoding" that causes loss of audio data. So when encoding with a "lossy" codec, it's the process of "encoding" that causes the loss - not "decoding". Conversion from "lossy" to "lossless" therefore will not cause any additional loss of data as the "loss" has already occurred.


View modes are stuck on default view

Question: I had my site for quite some time and just started to use the display suite view modes feature for changing the displays per node. I made new view modes and tried to change them for my nodes, but it seems that its just stuck on "default" view mode which is the full content view. I currently on display suite 7.1.x and updated to the latest as of Jan-2015 and it still does the same thing. Any hints would be great.
Answer: This seems to be an ongoing issue as there are reports of other modules conflicting with the display suite view modes feature. For some it had to do with Panels as seen here:
https://www.drupal.org/node/1919452

Posted by drupalstrap on February 17, 2013 at 5:57am Greetings,
The only view mode i am able to use is the default view mode. As long
  as I am using the default view mode, I can switch layouts without any
  problem. If I try to switch to another view mode, it still uses the
  settings of the default view mode. I have tried every way of
  troubleshooting that I can think of including changing themes,
  altering CSS files and tpl.php files etc in order to try to isolate
  the problem. Furthermore, i am not able to apply wrapper or class
  styles via the UI settings. They don't appear in the source code.
Anyway, I have been battling this for two days now and figured I would
  see if anybody out there has any suggestions. On the server side, I am
  using php 5.3 with apc. I have tried clearing cache hundreds of times
  as well as restarting the server to see if there was something in
  memory that was stuck. I have also tried other browsers so it is
  something related to my development environment I guess. LAMP???
  Please help. Thanks.
Upload new files Comments  billsdesk's picture Comment #1billsdesk
  commented 2 years ago I am having the same problem. I created a view
  mode and set it as the view mode to use when I edited the page. Yet,
  the Full Content mode is always used, and not the specified view mode.
  The Manage Display tab always opens the correct view mode. I turned on
  the view mode switcher, and it correctly identifies that the page
  opened in the full content mode. However, it does allow switching to
  the correct mode. I checked the permissions, and all is good. No error
  messages. I am using Drupal 7.22, and Display Suite 7-2.3. report spam
  on user billsdesk  alunyov's picture Comment #2alunyov commented about
  a year ago Hello, I had same problem. In my case switching off panel
  for node view helped to solve the issue. I think it is something
  related with page manager. If you check settings page:
  admin/structure/ds/list/extras -> Other -> "View mode per node"
  option, in description you will find "Change view modes for individual
  nodes. A new tab 'Display settings' will appear on the content create
  form. You can also pass the name of a view mode through the URL, eg
  node/x?v=full. If you install the Page manager module and override the
  node view, Page manager will win."
Added: check _ds_extras_menu_alter() in ds_extras.registry.inc. it
  explains a lot report spam on user alunyov  aspilicious's picture
  Comment #3aspilicious commented about a year ago Status:  Active  »
  Closed (works as designed) Closing this works as designed. If you
  still have this issue and you DON'T have page manager enabled please
  reopen this one. report spam on user aspilicious  Geijutsuka's picture
  Comment #4Geijutsuka commented about a year ago I'm having this
  problem on a new site I've been developing... The strange thing is
  that it's only happened within the last couple weeks. Something
  triggered this behavior, but I'm not sure what yet (trying to figure
  out STR).
I set up a brand-new sandbox site with everything up-to-date and it
  seems to work as designed... flawless. I also don't have Page Manager
  or Panels installed, and I definitely don't want to have to resort to
  changing the view mode for every single piece of content. I'm going to
  update the problematic site (ds is up to date, but there are a lot of
  other updates) and see if that fixes it... if not, I'll be back.

In my case it wasn't panels that was causing the issue but it was due to the "revisioning" module that cause the view mode to get stuck on default. There has also been reports here:
https://www.drupal.org/node/2304917#comment-9550067
I updated to the latest revisioning v7.1.9 and it still causes issues with the view mode. The only option is to turn this off if revisioning is really not necessary.

View modes are stuck on default view


Maximum RAM on Biostar P4M8PM7 Socket775 mATX board

Question: I have a server with a Biostar P4M8PM7 ("Pro-M7") board based on a VIA chipset.  It's a strange board to put in a server because it seems like more of a desktop board to me, but alas!
It takes DDR2-667 (PC5300) RAM.  What I can't figure out is the maximum amount I can put in it, as I cannot find the manual anywhere online.  I've found a few marketing broadsheets from online retailers that say, "up to 2 GB of RAM!" but I am not sure whether to believe them.  They also do not seem to be quite for the same board, as they indicate DDR2 400/533 RAM, for example:  http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P4M8P-M7.  The manufacturer's web site says the same thing, but does not elaborate.
It's a 64-bit CPU and board;  is there a technical reason why the board would not be able to address more than 2 GB?  Can someone tell me what sort of that reason that would be?  I bought this server from someone really hoping I could put 8 to 16 in it, and wanted to do some research before I gave up.
On a related note, it's not indicated anywhere whether it can take ECC RAM;  the existing chips are not ECC, but most memory sold in the range I'm looking for (e.g. DIMMs with enough chip density to do 8 GB) seems to be server-class and for that reason ECC.  Any ideas?
Thank you very much for your consideration in advance!
Answer: It only has two memory slots and uses a VIA P4M800 Pro chipset which can only handle 2GB (i.e. 2 x 1GB modules). It can't utilise ECC.


Slow speeds accessing NAS over SMB/AFP?

Question: I have media stored on a Synology NAS attached to my router. This is accessed by both PCs and laptops running Windows and Linux - some through a switch to the router, some wirelessly, and some via powerline adapters. In all instances where everything else is like for like the same, the Linux machines (running elementary OS) get sustained transfer speeds about 60% of the Windows machines.
For example, my laptop which dual boots Windows 10 and eOS, when plugged directly into the same router as the NAS via an ethernet cable - on Windows gets speeds up and down in excess of 100 MB/s transferring a 3GB .mkv file. On eOS I get around 65MB/s up and around 45MB/s down.
I also have a desktop Windows 10 PC which connects via power line adapter -> router - > NAS which gets uploads of around 11MB/s and downloads of around 3MB/s. On a NUC running eOS, connecting through the same powerline adapter,  I get uploads of around 5-6MB/s and downloads around 2.5MB/s. This is also true when I switch the ethernet cable over - so it's not an issue with one cable/port being of lower quality.
The speeds when wired directly wired are faster than SMB1, so I doubt that's the fault. Just in case, I did try editing samba.conf to set a minimum of SMB2, to no change. However, when I set the NAS to reject SMB1 connections I was unable to mount the drives on eOS, despite it seeming unlikely to be restricted to that level based on the speeds available.
I've also tested the eOS on powerline system using AFP to similar results. When testing with FTP I got download speeds nearer to the Windows on SMB, but for whatever reason my Synology NAS won't let me write to drive over an FTP connection and from a quick googling it looks like fixing that is more effort than it's worth when I have SMB working fine, if just marginally slower.
I haven't figured out how to access NFS connections, which don't show up for me under Entire Network in Pantheon Files and I can't figure out the correct input to do a direct Connect to Server. The closest I come is being able to see the shared folders when setting up an NFS connection in Kodi but can't access inside any of them. Again, not something I've rushed to solve considering SMB is already working as desired.
Is this difference in speed just a feature of how Linux handles network shares generally, or is there some tweaking I can do to get speed parity for the bandwidth available on SMB? Do I need to be looking at making NFS work if it really bothers me? Or is this speed difference unique to eOS or perhaps my specific network set up in some way?
Answer: Try to disable IPv6 and restart system. Few Ubuntu distro had similar issue in back., Since eOS is based on Ubuntu worth trying if that'll fix issue.
Answer: Have you tried removing the powerline adapter from the equation? I have a similar setup and one of my machines that is connected with a powerline adapter is capped at about 3.5MB/s where transfer speeds between my Synology and my directly connected (wired to the router) systems is about 65MB/s.
edit: I should mention that my system using the powerline adapter is a multiboot system with eOS, Ubuntu and Win10 and the 3.5MB/s xfer speed cap is persistent between each OS.
Comment: Yes - as I said in the first example, which is a laptop dual booting which connects directly to the same router as the NAS via an ethernet cable:

"For example, my laptop which dual boots Windows 10 and eOS, when plugged directly into the same router as the NAS via an ethernet cable - on Windows gets speeds up and down in excess of 100 MB/s transferring a 3GB .mkv file. On eOS I get around 65MB/s up and around 45MB/s down."

Removing the adapter isn't an option for my desktop usage set up due to the location in a room on different floor. Even so the speeds differ between Windows and eOS

Slow speeds accessing NAS over SMB/AFP?


New Pidgin chat windows created in the background

Question: I have tried everything I can, but Pidgin chat windows do not pop-up in focus when I get a new message. The chat windows are created in the background and I always miss them.
I suspect this is a 64-bit Windows 7 issue, but I don't have a fix.
Answer: Pidgin is designed intentionally to not steal window focus. It would be nice if there were an option to let it do so, but currently there is not. I personally find IM clients that steal focus to be very annoying, since they distract from my workflow, but each to their own.
What you can do is configure Pidgin to set the window state to "needy" when a new message comes in. This will make the window and its taskbar icon blink until you give it focus. Usually this is enough to grab my attention. In Pidgin 2.7.0 there is a bug which prevents blinking from working properly, but that was fixed in 2.7.1, so make sure you're running the latest version.
Answer: Pidgin has a "New Message Notification" plugin, in which there is an option to make windows appear in foreground.
(A possible reason they don't do so by default is that it is very annoying to accidentially IM your password to a stranger who just greeted you.)
Comment: The Message Notification plugin was helpful, but the windows are *still* not popping into the foreground - although they do bring me out of fullscreen videogames. :-\
Comment: Same problem here, I don't care for the Pidgin windows not to disturb my workflow as I notice the flashing icon right away, but it's so annoying that a new Pidgin window tends to disturb my game.
Answer: Try this (in combination with the message notification plugin):

Run the 64-bit version of the registry editor. (you have to close the 32-bit version first if it's running)
Navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Set the value ForegroundLockTimeout to 0.
You may need to reboot?


2003 Subaru Outback 2.5 l sedan automatic transmission sport mode

Question: I see the green light on the dashboard that says sport but don't know what it is and whether it should be on all the time. I also don't know where the button is to turn it off either. This car is secondhand for me and done 291,000 kms
Answer: At least for the 2005 model the following might be useful: http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/109-gen-3-2005-2009/411177-new-me-2005-sport-light-cluster.html

Once the shifter is in D, you can slide it to the side to engage sport mode. This does two things: increase the sensitivity of the first half of the accelerator pedal and change the shift timing to allow higher RPM for better acceleration. You don't get any extra power, but the change in the computer's interpretation of the accelerator input really does make the car feel faster. It is also harder to get advertised MPG in that mode.

Are you sure you are not sliding the shifter to the side from the D mode?
My car, a 2016 Toyota RAV4 hybrid also has the same "S" mode in the automatic (or well, actually, hybrid eCVT) transmission that allows manual emulated shifting. When I went for the first time into a test drive in that car, I accidentally turned the shifter all the way to the "S" position, which meant I probably got slightly lower MPG than possible. Nowadays, after purchasing the car, I use the "S" position only whenever I need the extra acceleration. Otherwise I use "D".


accepted answers with many downvotes

Question: This question has an accepted answer with currently 5 downvotes, so it looks that it's not a good answer after all. How can we encourage the asker to reconsider this accept?
Answer: What you did: write a comment addressed at OP.
There's something else. Not everybody looks at the upvote/downvote breakdown, IIRC users with less than 1000 rep can't even see that. An answer may have 10 upvotes and 9 downvotes, so 1 vote will be displayed. I'm afraid that many users will only look at the accepted answer. 9 downvotes is a lot, and IMO should count more than 10 upvotes. Two down per downvote?
Comment: I wouldn't be so quick to ding people for one or two downvotes, since those happen for random and sometimes wrong reasons.  We seem to have some occasional downvoting vandalism here too.  However, 3 or more downvotes isn't just vandalism or a mistake, that's a concensus.  In that case I can see the point to them causing a full upvote worth of rep loss.  Either way though, this seems to be a small problem on this site.  Earning 33 points for a bad answer feels wrong to me too, but it's also noise in the scheme of things.  That's less than 1/1000 the rep you and I each have.
Comment: @Kortuk - In that case shouldn't answers be ordered by votes, regardless of which answer was accepted? Listing the accepted answer first gives it extra credibility.
Comment: I dont think a comment on your answer will address the OP, but we can test, do you see this comment in your inbox @FedericoRusso? I did not get an autocomplete, so I doubt it. Please post on the question if you dont see this with your input, it is nice to let him know the status of his question has since changed, but in the end the poster gets to choose the accepted answer, but it is less rep than 2 upvotes. It also will draw attention to an incorrect answer, I am sure it would have many fewer downvotes if it were witting at the bottom of the list and not accepted.
Comment: @Kortuk: no, I didn't get notified. I agree with stevenvh, the 5 downvotes are much worse than the total result of -2, and these aren't shown. I'll write a comment to the question. Thanks.
Comment: @FedericoRusso, the user whom posted the answer also has the option to delete their own answer and get rid of all of that nasty rep loss. I would consider this the way that most answers that are incorrectly accepted can be rectified.
Comment: @Kortuk - currently 3 upvotes, 6 downvotes. Despite the smashing number of downvotes this earns him +3 x 10 + 15 - 6 x 2 = +33 points! Why would he delete it? Shouldn't downvotes have more effect?
Comment: @stevenvh, they look bad honestly, I have deleted when I was new for that reason. If you are doing everything only for the reputation number I think it is being done for the wrong reason. Reputation is a made up number that we attempt to use as a shortened resume on the site. Hopefully most people are here for the warm feeling you get when you help someone. Even if they answer is incorrect, which is displayed by the net number of up and down votes, the user is still taking part in the site and is getting some reward in privileges. 10k rep this way would be an issue, but 30, who cares.
Comment: @Kortuk - agreed about rep. I stated what I see as a problem in my answer: even though there may be a lot of those bad-looking downvotes they may hardly be visible. Who's curious enough to take a look at the up/downvotes breakdown?
Comment: @stevenvh, I consider it more of a fancy, if the answer has 2 upvotes but yours has 7 it is pretty clear which answer is better. In this case I dont think the answer is "wrong" but instead just lacks an actual answer.
Comment: @stevenvh, extra credibility, as the signed answer that corrected the users issue, and increased review as the first think all experts will read, as you saw on this question.
Comment: I think most of the time the system works.  This is a unusual case where it failed and bad advice was given the stamp of approval.  I used upvotes, downvotes, and comments to do my little part in trying to rectify the situation.  Others obviously did too, and the problem seems have been largely cleared up.

accepted answers with many downvotes


What does ヘニャッ mean?

Question: What does ヘニャッ mean in the following sentence?

やっぱり甘えたいと思う時あいますよね。疲れている時とか、ヘニャッってなりたくなる 時。
Comment: @Chocolate それです。 意味がわかりません。
Comment: これかも・・・ http://kajunko.blog100.fc2.com/blog-date-20130423.html (違ったらゴメン!)
Comment: 擬態語ですよね。「フニャッ」と「ヘナッ」をくっつけた感じがしません?
Answer: I agree with Chocolate that it is 擬態語. Thus if I understand correctly it is a sibling of onomatopoeia, but not quite the same thing, because ヘニャッ doesn't come from sound.
The mental picture this word should evoke is something soft that buckles or collapses. So in the context of what you provided, I think it's a (tired) human body that buckles (onto the lap of the girl/boyfriend or something like that I'd imagine, since you say 甘えたい)
Comment: I guess mimesis is the correct term.
Answer: As with any mimetic word in Japanese, the meaning is strongly connected to how one would imagine an action would sound like. Considering the context of "wanting to be spoiled or pampered", it can be related to letting go of all muscular control and folding up or lying flat like a sheet of dough (as opposed to something that has bones and joints).
If we were to extend the sound to ヘニャァァ or something similar, then it would conjure an image of something slowly spreading outwards, like a gel -- a more emphatic form of the action discussed in the previous paragraph.

What does ヘニャッ mean?


Why is my server swapping at all?

Question: Munin shows ram that is doing nothing most of the time. But swapping still happens. Quite regularly actually, bogging down the hdd.

Or am I seeing the ram graph in the wrong way?
How would I go about diagnosing this kind of problem?
Answer: Ok, let's look at this in more detail then.
From you image, I get that your server has a couple of moments during the day, where it reports a couple of pages being swapped out.
A memory page is 4KiB in size. That is 4096 bytes. The maximum amount of pages I see swapped out per second in your graph is 2. That is 8192 bytes per second for a period of maybe 10 to 15 minutes. Your harddrive can handle this. Really. This is not bogging down your harddrive. If it is, you really need another drive. Even simple harddrives are generally able to handle dozens of megabytes per second.
Now, as for why your server is swapping: it is pretty normal for a Linux system that has been on for a prolonged period of time to use some swap. Only pages that are hardly ever accessed are swapped out and you should not notice any negative effects when this happens.
Again, in your case, only a couple of megabytes have ever been in use as swap. I cannot relate the white parts in your graph to the minute amount of swapping that occured. Are you looking for that?
Comment: I've to look somewhere else for the root of the problem. Yesterday at around 8:30PM network became very slow, server was giving me download speeds around 80kbps from 10mbps.
Answer: Sometimes Linux swaps even when there's enough RAM, if this is causing a problem you can
a) Reduce the swappiness value
b) Reduce the size of the swap partition or get rid of it altogether. (I personally like to have a very small swap partition, many sysadmins like none at all, it depends of what kind of failure -oom vs swapping- is worse for you).

Why is my server swapping at all?


Dual-Boot Problem

Question: I have a HP laptop that originally had Windows 7 OS on it, I partioned the drive and allocated 100gb (est.) for the ubuntu install. the install went fine i have ubuntu and windows 7 still on the computer. But I can not get the OS boot screen to show ubuntu as an OS. I can while start up pull up the start menu screen via ESC. Key and press F9 for Boot Device Options and get the boot manager screen and it lists... OS boot manager, Ubuntu (Hitachi HTS 543232A7A384), boot from EFI file, and Notebook Hard Drive... I can boot Ubuntu from this screen by selecting Ubuntu. But i would like to make it easier to access. The computer boot is not for myself otherwise it would not be a problem i would remove windows altogether. I would like to make it basically "User Friendly" if that's at all possible and make the OS boot screen show Ubuntu as a bootable OS as well as Windows 7. on the boot selection screen. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated, I've looked to see if i could find the answer and maybe i've overlooked something so here I am. Like i said i need it to be as user friendly as possible and force the user to choose windows 7 or ubuntu not send them into one or the other without them being allowed to choose. I can get any information you might need if necessary but i dont know exactly what you'll need other than what i've given. Ubuntu version is the 13.04 just so you know.
Comment: please indicate your Boot-Info URL ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info )
Answer: What you are looking for, is called Grub (bootloader). Bootloader lets you select the OS.
Follow the steps to install the grub.
Boot your system using a live cd or live usb. Open Terminal. (ctrl+alt+t)
Enter command to the list the disk partition table.
<code>$ sudo fdisk -l
</code>
Find the parition on which linux is installed. Let say it is <code>/dev/sda4</code>.
Mount the parition.
<code>$ sudo mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
</code>
Now we can install the grub.
<code>$ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
</code>
Note in the above command it's sda and not sda4. Grub is installed, now update it.
<code>$ sudo update-grub
</code>

Dual-Boot Problem


Move or copy a O365 SharePoint subsite

Question: How do you move or copy a O365 SharePoint subsite and all of its children subsites in one site collection to another site collection? I have looked at using PowerShell but it does not seem possible without using CSOM. Can anyone guide me?
Answer: You can use the following to copy site to another site within the site collection
Site Setting --> Site Administration --> Content and structure --> Select the site from the left navigation and move
To copy to another site collection: try using copy site as a template (include content) and then use the template file to create a new site under the other site collection
Comment: Thanks for your feedback but I am trying to move from one site collection to another so the first suggestion would not work for me. Regarding the use of templates, I have tried but I am coming up against path-length and max template size restrictions.
Comment: Then I would suggest what Eric has already suggested and go with one of the tools out there. Sharegate gives you 15 days free trial (last time I checked) and test if this is going to achieve your req.
Good Luck!
Comment: "Content and structure" has been deprecated in the meantime and is now longer available. Also I believe that with the Sharegate trial not all items are migrated they randomly skip some items inside the stuff you want to migrate/move/copy.
Answer: The powershell coverage is weak, so you aren't going to have export options like you would on prem. You would have to create a script with CSOM, as a compiled exe or in powershell, to perform the provisioning and copying data around.
If this is a one off scenario that might be ok, if you foresee the need to do this often, you might want to invest in a third party tool to help you. There are plenty of vendors in this space, like Sharegate, Metalogix, Avepoint, etc.
Comment: Yes, it is a one-off at least for the foreseeable future. What is happening is that we need to separate content under one site collection and move one part over to its own SC. So i thought that it would be good to use CSOM seeing that SPO PowerShell cmdlets were limited. can you point me in the right direction to use CSOM to move a subsite(s)?
Comment: I don't have anything to refer to, it is a large, complex operation to create the site collection, copy permissions, copy lists and libraries and pages, with or without versions, and copying files. There are a lot of variables that would be highly specific to your site. I'd really recommend a tool, either sharegate or office 365 essentials from metalogix.
Answer: For SharePoint Online - the way to do this is via PnP :
<code>Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Url -Out #to get the provisioning Template

Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Path #to Apply the template to the new site / Site Collection
</code>
This will get all of the site columns, site content types, term store, list definitions,  (empty) lists, Site Structure and copy them to the new site.
If you want content moved across as well, then that needs more PowerShell, but is doable.
Answer: Open the site from SharePoint Designer and click on the Save Site as Template option.  Then just build a copy from that template.

Move or copy a O365 SharePoint subsite


Running old .exe programs under Windows 7

Question: My new computer used Windows 7. I have some old compiled BASIC programs and other .exe progrms that will not run under Windows.  What shall I do?
Answer: Is it Windows 7 Professional?  You could use virtual pc.
Answer: If they are old DOS programs your best bet would by running them in DosBox, an MS-DOS emulator.
Other than that you could use a virtual machine.  Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate can download XP Mode which is a Windows XP virtual machine.  Otherwise there is VMWare or Virtual Box, but both of those would require a separate copy of Windows loaded on them.
Answer: If you're running a 64-bit version of Windows then you will need a system emulator to run DOS applications since Long Mode does not support running Virtual 8086 Mode processes.


Are test set cases always meant to be run in succession?

Question: We are in the process of developing an in-house testing solution that is tailored to our applications. As of right now when you add a new test case to a plan you must choose the prerequisite steps, and then enter the steps, along with the additional details. My question is when creating a new test set should we ask if the cases within the set are meant to be stand-alone (requiring a log in, and log out after each case so the next case can execute), or just assume that all tests sets are developed to be run sequentially with no prerequisites necessary?
Answer: Instead of an "either/or", it is better to think of test case or scenario testing as a tree structure:
Trunk: This is common test set that are always run (e.g. launch the application)
Branch: These are major scenarios that have few common tasks (e.g. "admin" vs "user" scenarios)
Branch: ... (if needed)
Branch: ... (if needed)
Twig: Test cases that are launched from a common branch (e.g. "admin" sets up a new user with specific permissions.)
Leaf: Specific test cases to verify the permissions in a specific "twig" scenario (e.g. verify positive and negative cases for each permission granted or denied)
This allows you to use applications like VM or automated setups to snapshot branches or higher levels to repeat scenarios in sequence with variations and also the greatest independence of setups such that they can be run independently in any order.That structure gives you the maximum implementation flexibility for efficiently testing your application context.
Good luck!
Comment: This is actually a great way to think of it, and I appreciate your input. I actually have two reasons for wanting to run in succession: 1) They will execute much quicker 2) (And I feel the most important) They will allow state changes to occur in the application that wouldn't normally happen with independent tests. As of right now, there are no charts, diagrams, or any way for me to ascertain relationships and dependencies between forms without digging through code that is overly complicated. In your scenario, are the tests flagged in any way? More to follow...
Comment: I'm actually going to respond to below, and would love your insight on the topic of full succession testing.
Comment: Hmm ... we seem to be getting buried on terminology. By "full succession". I assume you mean a test that is intended to run straight through without stopping for failures (as opposed to the "fail-closed" model that Kate mentioned). Without digging through the code to capture the dependencies, I would recommend you do some heavy manual exploring and build a model of the dependencies. On one application, I kept a hierarchical list of dependencies in a Word document in outline mode. I ended up with a document a few hundred pages long. Understanding is key before automation.
Comment: Thanks, that's exactly what I'm doing now, and I'd like to thank everybody that gave me feedback. I wish I had 15 reputation so I could upvote every answer I've received =) I will go ahead and mark this as the answer.
Answer: Here are pros and cons of running tests in a sequence. I understood you ask in a context of automation, not manual execution.
Pros:

Execution time can take shorter, because previous test sets prerequisites for the next one.

Cons:

Harder to run in parallel. If you have a sequence of tests that depends on each other, you cannot run them in parallel. You can only run the whole sequence in parallel to other sequences of tests, assuming that sequences are independent each other.
Limited feedback in case of test failure. When executing a tests in a sequence, the strategy is to skip tests that follow a failing one. So if your sequence is long, and one of initial tests fails, then you will loose significant amount of feedback, because lots of your tests will be skipped.
Harder to maintain. What if one of the tests in a sequence verifies a feature that no longer exists in the product? You will need to remove it from a sequence but also make sure the next test in the sequence will have a necessary input state/prerequisites. You should therefore make sure that it is clear why one test depends on a result of another.
Comment: It is also easier to accidentally rely on side-effects, e.g. test2 depends on something test1 did.
Comment: @user246, right, this may result in false positives. If there is such implicit dependency on such effects it should be made explicit in a test.
Comment: @user246 The issue I'm running in to is that there is no documentation regarding dependencies within the code. If I'm stuck doing one test, then resetting I can never accurately portray what is happening in production. Am I forced to badger development about providing the documentation that is required while they're still busy putting out fires?
Answer: This is a pretty common situation - and one I've dealt with myself. Based on your comments and the question itself, I can offer a few suggestions.

Document your test dependencies - if you're going to be running tests that depend on the result of other tests, make sure you document them.
Build in per-test checks - it's a lot more complex to check the results of a test with dependent tests, but if you don't do this you'll make analyzing your results much more difficult. As an example, if you run a series of sale transactions as part of a test run, you want to check the totals for each transaction immediately after the transaction completes rather than waiting until the end of the test run to check all the transactions.
Consider a fail-closed model - By this I mean abort the run as soon as any test fails because each subsequent test depends on the success of the test before it. You can work around this with well-designed per-test checks, but they won't get you out of all the potential problems. Fail-closed also saves a lot of time analyzing results after the first failure, but has the disadvantage that you won't know if there's a problem in the later tests.
Make your tests as granular as possible - You want a whole lot of small routines that you can parameterize and call at will. The structure I use for this kind of testing has a driver that pulls an ordered list of tests to run (with test type and data identifiers), then based on the type of test calls the appropriate routine and sends the data identifiers to the appropriate routine. This makes reordering tests for a change in application flow relatively trivial. Since I build in the validation on a per-test basis, a reordered flow doesn't affect my baseline data much.
Comment: Thanks for the thorough feedback. I'm really impressed by the depth in the answers I've received. I'll be implementing all of your suggestions as they seem almost neccesary for my environment.
Answer: An additional theoretical concept to consider is this. The ISTQB terminology separates test cases from test procedures. During test case design, in the description of the test case you should detail all that you mentioned, prerequisites, etc and the expected outcome. However, when implementing the test case (either as manual or automatic) you essentially create the test procedure which may include details on how to execute the test case and also various optimizations such as combining test case parts if they are similar.
So, strictly speaking your test case description should be stand-alone and you would create a separate test procedure detailing sequential execution. In practice, of course, you don't always document both, however this is a good practice to seprate more abstract concepts of a test case and its implementation details.


Peace Lily - Black spots on flower

Question: I have this Peace Lily which recently got this black spots on its flower, and also some leaves are becoming yellow. Do you guys have any idea of what may be happening? I water it regularly and the temperature here stays between 18-28 Celsius (64F-82F). I leave it indoors in my bedroom and I let it next o the window in the morning to get some light, and then I take it back to a shady area. There is a chemical industry near my house, not sure if this is related to it somehow. Thanks!
Answer: Spathiphyllum (peace lily) does not appreciate direct sunlight, even through a window - keep it in a sunless but reasonably well lit (by daylight) spot - the black edges and blackened area on the white spathe are likely a result of sunlight exposure. However,in the first picture, that looks like a dusty black deposit, possibly of fungal origin - does it brush off? Check the rest of the plant, especially near the base, for signs of fungal growth - if everything's okay, it might just be the spathe/flower starting to fade, coupled with sun exposure (if it gets sun through that window).
Comment: These flowers look very old and are starting to decompose.  CUT the flowers off, use them in vases.  This will only help the plant as all that energy going into making flowers and seed will be diverted to the entire plant.  Cut as low as you can so there isn't a stump left.

Peace Lily - Black spots on flower


Is there any way to revoke or update private key?

Question: Suppose my private key corresponding to an address is stolen.
Is there any way to revoke private key or update the private key?
Answer: Generate a new private key, calculate its public key, derive an address from the pubKeyScript and forward your funds protected with your old,  compromised private key to the new address protected by your new private key.
--
Simplified:
Send your funds to a new address generated in a secure environment (HWW, cold storage, etc.)


I am being serial downvoted or something else

Question: How does one know if you are being serial down voted? How do you reverse it and stop them from voting on your stuff in the future?
Comment: You should realize that receiving a lot of downvotes does not mean that there is a "serial downvoter" (in the sense that the downvotes are there because the post is by *you*). It could also be that your posts are just of low quality, like this one: Spelling errors, no capitalization at the start of sentences, the word "perpetuate" dangling at the end with unclear meaning.
Comment: @Jen But why would I, if I feel your posts are bad (not saying that I do; I haven't looked at your posts), opt not to vote? Remember that the primary goal is to have a "perfect" repository of knowledge, i.e. it is actually *useful* to make sure that content that you deem bad is downvoted because it will reflect badly on the site.
Comment: The tool continue to show nothing. Odds are you are being downvoted by many voters who don't think much of your content. Which is how the site is designed to work.
Comment: You went through your question to edit it, but it is just as unclear as before. What's the deal with the word "Recognize" just hanging out at the end? It's just as unclear as "perpetuate" was. The lack of clarity wasn't the definition of the word but what the heck it means when it's sitting in a sentence all alone. It looks like your question was cut off in the middle or something.
Comment: We have tools to detect and reverse serial voting. They don't register anything new on your account, but I'll look into it again tomorrow. Some of the scripts only run occasionally.
Comment: @ACuriousMind you can opt not to vote.
Comment: @dmckee you are great for helping on this site.
Answer: Serial voting is well addressed in the Meta Stack Exchange post What is serial voting and how does it affect me?, and the short of it is that in essentially all the cases that matter, serial voting (which usually means someone going through your profile and either upvoting everything or downvoting a bunch of posts) gets automatically detected and reversed within 24 hours. The precise details of the algorithm are not made widely available to avoid people gaming the system, but the thresholds are generally enough that when serial downvotes really begin to bite the script will kick in.
One common point of confusion for new users is when a single post accumulates a lot of downvotes in a short expanse of time. Here it's important to note that users can only vote on a post once, so by definition this behaviour is not serial downvoting - it is just a bunch of different users who disagree with the post.
Serial downvoting usually looks like a series of votes on different posts (with few posts receiving more than one vote), often with those posts having been inactive for some time. If you do see behaviour like that, the thing to do is to wait 24 hours for the script to kick in. If it doesn't, then see What should you do if you're serial downvoted & it isn't automatically reversed within 24 hours? - in essence, that probably means that the downvotes originated from different users.
If you still think that there's a suspicious pattern you can flag one of the posts with a custom moderator flag explaining the situation. There is probably not much that a site moderator can do to help, since by design they cannot see voting histories, but if it does look suspicious they will pass this along to a Stack Exchange team member who can look and see if there is behaviour that requires corrective action. If you do raise such a flag, be very attentive to any feedback you get, and please be receptive to such information and apply it in the future; do not abuse the moderator flag privilege as it does put an undue strain on the site.
Another thing you said deserves mention:

How do you reverse it and stop them from voting on your stuff in the future?

The point of voting is to deliver a clear signal about the quality of each post to prospective visitors and to provide a way for quality content to be more easily visible and accessible; this is obviously an integral part of the model. As such, there will never be a facility for you to block any specific user, named or not, from voting on your posts. (This is distinct from voting irregularities, like serial voting and sockpuppetting, which are abuses of the voting system and for which the system already has comprehensive defences in place.)
That said, if you're getting significant amount of downvotes, what it probably means is that people's opinion of the post aligns with the tooltip on the downvote button: This answer is not useful or This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful. Downvotes on a post (particularly multiple downvotes) should be a flag for you to look carefully and critically at their quality.

Make sure that your grammar, spelling, punctuation and syntax is top-notch. The goal here is to build a repository of quality content that will last a long time; poor language shws & if posts r bdly spellled or the bad grammar then th pst becoms much h4rder t read & mch < useful 4 de futur visitors. On the spectrum between txtspeak and textbook language we are shooting for maybe just below textbook level, and the care and polish you put into your posts will directly impact their perceived quality.
Double-check that your content is very much correct, and be open and receptive to any comments that claim otherwise. Scour your references to make sure that you've represented them correctly, and make sure that you've represented them fully, provide those references in full, and then go scour the web some more to find better ones. Think critically about your post and look for ways you could be wrong, or alternative angles that cast doubt on your approach; if you find those then it can help to mention them as pitfalls to be aware of (without necessarily needing to delete your post). Recognize when you're out of your depth and be open to the possibility that you might actually not know the answer to the question.
Make sure that you are actually addressing the question as posed, and that you're not going off on a tangent or providing an unrelated rant. This means you need to carefully and critically read the question and identify what is and is not being asked; address the former and delete any content that addresses the latter.
Make sure that you're asking a properly self-contained, cohesive, well-researched, well-posed question, that the prospective answers will be of a suitable length and require a reasonable level of effort, and that you've provided all the information necessary for answerers to address your question.

And finally, to reiterate, this and similar questions can be answered by an appropriate search on Meta Stack Exchange. I would also strongly encourage you to do a systematic readthrough of the FAQ for Stack Exchange Sites, which contains clear explanation of all of the essentials of the dynamics on the network.
Answer: Jen, I've seen that your posts are attracting a lot of downvotes, and as dmckee mentioned it is not due to a serial downvoter, so chances are that the quality of your questions are not upto the mark,
I see that most of your questions are about blackholes and other pop-science stuff, It is great that you want to know about these topics, for which I would say that you are doing a wonderful job trying to understand science (considering most of today's teens), but there is a systematic way to do it. Any good answer to these questions will involve concepts of physics and math that I doubt you would have come across, In order to have a deep understand of physics you need to start with the basics and work your way towards the top. There is no shortcut.
So, I'd say you start out with basics and start asking questions about concepts you find hard to grasp, I bet nobody would downvote these
And please remember that this is not to discourage you, this is intended to motivate you in the right path
In short

(Source: Internet)
Answer:
You should realize that receiving a lot of down votes does not mean that there is a "serial down voter" (in the sense that the down votes are there because the post is by you). It could also be that your posts are just of low quality, like this one: Spelling errors, no capitalization at the start of sentences, the word "perpetuate" dangling at the end with unclear meaning.

– ACuriousMind, in a comment
Comment: @DavidZ: Uh, it's not an answer to the question, that's why it's a comment - I didn't address how one deals with serial downvoting at all, which is what the question is. I just remarked that the premise of the question may be false.
Comment: @HDE226868 I'd say Jen is right here. If someone posts something that should be an answer in the comment box, it's perfectly legitimate to copy and paste it as an answer, as long as you don't break our guidelines on plagiarism. (i.e. make it clear that it's a quote, and attribute the source) It's _polite_ to offer the person a chance to post the answer themselves, yes, but not _required_. At least, this is the site culture here. I'm sure some other SE sites do it differently.
Comment: @HDE226868 no disrespect if you write a reasonable answer in my comment box I will use it, but if they ask not to be quoted I'll take it off.
Comment: @ACuriousMind ah, well... let me skirt that issue and just say that if you post something as a comment, it's not against the rules for someone to take that comment and repost it as an answer, as long as they attribute it properly. If the resulting post is not actually an answer, then we can deal with that separately, but the mere fact that it was copied from a comment is not inherently a problem.
Comment: I don't care, if you think it answers your question, leave it here. (I don't think it answers your question, though, unless you really meant to ask *"Why am I being downvoted a lot?"* and not *"How does one stop serial voting?"*)
Comment: You should leave it to ACuriousMind to write this answer himself.
Comment: Strictly speaking this post is in violation of the rather strict rules for attribution under the CC-SA. So, it should be improved or deleted.
Comment: Yeah, I'll go ahead and fix that since I edited it. The question of whether it should be an answer or not remains open, I suppose.
Comment: @ACuriousMind do you want it deleted?
Answer: Actually this site is not appropriate for the enthusiastic amateur/teenager, i.e. somebody who has not sat through a course  relevant to the subject under question. Discussing quantum mechanics at the hand waving level is not the purpose of this site.
I have answered some of your questions, because I am sympathetic to the enthusiasm  displayed , and it is good to encourage open questions and the interest of the young in physics, but you have to realize that most trained physicists get impatient with naive questions. So you should shrug  but  try to learn from the negative votes, particularly if there is a comment explaining the -1 . It is all in the process of growing up in physics.
Comment: "this site is not appropriate for the enthusiastic amateur" do you mean that? honestly, I think it's cool for non-professional physicists to ask questions and even answer them if they can (within reason and within our guidelines)


Fireworks: Can I set a transparent fill color but solid stroke?

Question: When I set transparency to a shape, it applies both to the fill color and the stroke color.
What if I need a semi-transparent fill color, but keep the stroke opaque?
Answer: Giving the object a gradient fill and setting the gradient node opacities to 0 is the quickest solution.
Answer: I think the only way to do that in Adobe Fireworks is to work with 2 shapes.
(not 100% sure about that, if there is someone with more Fireworks knowledge around please correct me, what you would be looking for is something like the Appeareance panel in Adobe Illustrator)
This is how you do it with two separate shapes:
One shape with no fill color and a 100% Opacity Stroke,
and then copy/paste the shape,
send it to back(or place it on another layer behind the one with the Stroke shape)
and for this second shape remove the stroke and add a Fill Color,
than play with the opacity settings on this shape...
This is what you get(notice that the Stroke color is 100% opaque and the Fill color is transparent):
.

After you've done all of the above you can then group the stroke shape with the fill shape and it kind of acts like one shape...
[in the image above its the orange stroke rectangle and the purple rectangle bellow it, the green circle is just to illustrate the transparency of the fill and the 100% opacity of the stroke of the rectangle group of shapes/strokes]
Comment: Great, try the answer above this one too.. seems legit :)
Answer: You can also do this with a single shape.
First, you'll need to create and export 50x50 px black (#000000) square (save it as a PNG8 and place it somewhere you can easily find it again.) This will be used as a texture for the fill.
Now create the vector shape you want to have a transparent fill and solid stroke and assign the stroke and fill colors. For the fill, add a texture, and from the texture list choose "Other..." and navigate to the black PNG8 square previously saved.
When the texture is applied, FW usually defaults to 50% opacity, so it will just look like the fill color got lighter. To make the fill transparent, check the "Transparent" option beneath the texture name.
You can now use the opacity control for the texture to control the opacity of the fill independent of the opacity for the stroke.
Comment: presumably, this is going to scale well because it is a solid fill raster image. Do you know of any adverse side-effects to using a raster image as a fill texture?
Answer: Another way, create a vector shape with your desired stroke, on the 'fill option' instead of choosing 'solid fill' choose 'gradient fill' doesn't matter what type or colour if you want a completely transparent fill as you set the opacity on both ends of the gradient to 0. If you require a semi transparent fill then edit the colour and opacity levels to each end of the gradient till you find the required effect.
HTH


The permissions granted to user 'DomainName\UserName' are insufficient for performing this operation

Question: I am using SSRS Reports in Asp.Net. I am using ServerReport.ReportServerCredentials and in this Credentials are system administrator username, password and domain. But I want to a simple user account who can view these reports by using an aspx page -> ReportViewer. In this aspx c# code page i want to pass simple user credential to ServerReport.ReportServerCredentials and this user is not administrator. But when i am using this it gives an error i.e.
The permissions granted to user 'DomainName\UserName' are insufficient for performing this operation. (rsAccessDenied)

How can we resolve this error?
How can we use simple user account instead of administrator account in ServerReport.ReportServerCredentials???
Answer: You have to grant access to the report to the DomainName\UserName account in the report manager.


Limit file size for "image url" field

Question: We use the "image URL" field via profile to allow members to upload their organization logo. We would like to limit the file size a user can upload. Are there any options for us?
Thank you!
Comment: Are you using Drupal, Joomla or WP?
Comment: We are using WP and CiviCRM 4.7.14.
Comment: Are you uploading other files that will be larger than the image file size?
Answer: You should be able to implement a hook via PHP to validate the profile when it is submitted: https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/hooks/hook_civicrm_processProfile/.
Someone else may want to chime in. I'm not sure if you can use form hooks with profiles. Otherwise you may check this: https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/hooks/hook_civicrm_validateForm/
You can then use PHP to validate the file size:
Check this thread (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9153224/how-to-limit-file-upload-type-file-size-in-php).

Limit file size for "image url" field


What is this electrical cord for?

Question: I found this odd cable while cleaning out the garage of a house I recently bought. It's plugged in to a live outlet but doesn't appear to connect anywhere. It also has some wrapped junction in the middle. Super puzzling to me. Thanks!
Answer: That looks like heating tape.
You wrap it round water pipes in the garage or somewhere else cold.  It provides just enough heat to stop the pipes freezing.
I've used this in the past on outside taps.  It is available at most big DIY shops.  It doesn't use much power.
Comment: Or possibly along rooflines to stop ice dams.   The giveaway is that it's wrapped around or along a pipe.  No AC power wire should ever be attached to the outside of a pipe (heat tape excepted, obviously) and no wire of any kind should ever be attached to electrical cable or conduit.
Comment: This is correct, but note also that this isn't properly installed if it's pipe heat tape and should potentially be discarded if it has been operated in this condition. Heat tape doesn't pull a lot of power, and doesn't generate a substantial amount of heat when used as intended, but it is meant to be *wrapped*, in continuous pipe contact so that the heat it does generate can be evenly dissipated into the pipe and out of the cable itself (the line lump contains an ambient temperature thermostat). Operating it without contact with pipes could have deteriorated it if it's tape designed for pipes.
Comment: The consumption depends on the purpose of the heating tape. In the lab we are using such tapes to heat vacuum chambers so they are evacuated faster to high vacuum. In short ammount of time they reach 75 °C.
Answer: It's heat tape for that pipe in your garage.
You want to get some decent insulation back on the entire pipe, looks like the previous owner was trying different things to prevent freezing.  Would be interesting to find what that pipe does, apparently it's in service now with the valves open.
Comment: I believe it's the main water line coming into the house
Answer: Heat tape! Only plug it in when it going be cold for long period of time. 32 and below.
Comment: You know, in some parts of the world "32" is beach weather.
Comment: @JDługosz Don't you mean "in _most_ parts of the world"? :^)
Comment: yep especially here in [Scotland](http://www.electricscotland.com/humour/h54.htm)!
  So long as it is sunny here it is barbecue and shorts weather!

What is this electrical cord for?


what books do you suggest for a beginner like me ?

Question: i am studying bacholar of dental surgery but have intrest in learning this subjet so tell me about a good book to read.
Comment: Toppsy and Tim go to the Dentist : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/391404344515?lpid=122&chn=ps&googleloc=1006898&poi=&campaignid=620794543&device=c&adgroupid=27377119746&rlsatarget=pla-181479841746&adtype=pla&crdt=0
Comment: Welcome to *Robotics* immortalbeing, but I'm afraid that *Life Questions* are off-topic. Questions about how to spend your time (**what book to read**, which class to take, what robotics project to construct, what career to pursue, etc.) may be about difficult decisions, & they are often important, but they are too specific to your own situation & are unlikely to help future visitors to the site. They would be better off asked in [chat]. We prefer *[practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face](http://robotics.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask)*, see [ask] & [about].
Comment: If you have something specific you want to learn about, then come to [chat] and we can point you to some good resources.
Answer: If you only want a single comprehensive text on Robotics, I would recommend the Springer Handbook of Robotics. I covers everything from controls and artificial intelligence to perception and mechanics; it is a phenomenal touchstone for further reading and is authored by the best minds in each sub-discipline in robotics. Of particular relevance to your background, there is significant coverage given to medical robotics, which you might find interesting.
Answer: Most introduction courses which are held on schools and universities are practical oriented. They use out-of-box robotics sets like Lego Mindstorms, Aldebaran Nao or Baxter Robot. On the topics of robotics there are many good books out there for theoretical advice. Most dominant is "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach". A nice ressource for additional information is Google Scholar. At the beginning i would suggest to search for paper which are using computergames like Mario AI or Starcraft AI for implementing algorithms.
Comment: It looks like Manuel Rodriguez may have accidentally created two accounts. If so, then please follow the instructions at [I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?](http://robotics.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts) Stack Exchange only allows an individual to actively use one account. Any and all duplicates should be merged into your main account. @BendingUnit22 - I can't personally merge the accounts, it [has to be request by the user](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/272251)
Comment: Welcome to *Robotics*, ManuelRodriguez. On Stack Exchange we are are looking for comprehensive answers that provide some explanation and context. One-line answers cannot do this, so please edit your answer to explain why it is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.
Comment: Hey Manuel thanks for adding more information. I approved the edit to your post, which usually wouldn't be necessary: you can always edit your own content without approval. However, it looks like you have created a second account with the same name ([Manuel 1](http://robotics.stackexchange.com/users/14275/manuel-rodriguez) & [Manuel 2](http://robotics.stackexchange.com/users/14276/manuel-rodriguez)) thus you are considered a new user making the edit. Did you do this intentionally or by accident? Do you need help? It's possible to merge both accounts into one if you wish.Ask @Chuck or on [meta]
Comment: Note that while moderators [can't merge accounts for you](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/272251), they  may delete accounts they believe to be [sock puppets](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/57685/138432), so it would be better to [merge the accounts](http://robotics.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts) rather than risk account deletion, especially since your older account has some reputation to transfer to the newer one.


Is it ever appropriate to fight back?

Question: When an website or system is being attacked, is there ever a scenario where it should automatically take action against the attackers rather than just passively handling the attack? If so, what responses are appropriate and legal? Are there any examples (good or bad) of this happening in the wild?
Answer: Passive scanning such as determining geo location, IP address, network routes is probably a good idea (to give you an understanding of where attacks are originating from).
Update:
Actually for larger institutions this is kind of essential in determining whether the attack is a large scale organised attack or simply a lone hacker testing out the defences. Either way it will probably be distributed. In either case it will provide useful information for further locking down the firewalls.
Depending on the legal framework of the country you live in, retaliating to an attack with a active network attack of your own (such as DOS or virus) would constitute an illegal act.
Comment: I don't believe there is sufficient legal precedent to conclude all counter-attacks are illegal.  From my reading, more court test cases are needed.
Comment: Good point on legality. I edited my question to clarify that I'm looking for legal solutions.
Comment: for the US: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.html
Answer: Fighting back is what the cool kids do! >:)
Regarding law, I grabbed this snippet from http://lawmeme.law.yale.edu/static/pastevents/digitalcops/papers/karnow_newcops.pdf (2005)

"CONCLUSION
  Even under nuisance law, not every counterstrike – or
  "self help" effort – is automatically immune. It has to be
  reasonable, and proportional to the nuisance, issues I discussed
  in connection with a similar requirement under self-defense.
  And as always, the light cast by ancient doctrine upon novel
  technologies will produce illumination and shadow both. Courts
  will "fudge" on the analysis and struggle for precedent,
  sometimes testing out the wrong one. Just as no one wants to
  roll out version 1 (new software), no one wants to be a test case
  in court. It is, as a surgeon might say when considering a
  complex, multi-organ transplant, an interesting case – not
  something the patient likes to hear."

On a serious note there are so many bad hack-back scenarios to imagine that you have to wonder when you would be ready to pull the trigger; for example, what if you hack-back to stop a botnet attack only to later learn that some of the systems you counter-attacked were critical hospital system that were inadvertently part of the botnet herd.
Regarding examples, Richard Bejtlich blogged in 2005:

"I disagree with the strike-back idea, as I believe it steps over the line into vigilante justices. It is telling that Tim's papers all pre-date the Welchia worm, which demonstrated how dangerous strike-back can really be. You'll remember the devastating ICMP traffic caused by Welchia as it searched for live machines for purposes of disabling the Blaster worm. "
Comment: Totally correct imho. Counter strike is black hat vigilante justice.
Answer: The #1 Question for me is: what do you hope to achieve in "fighting back"?
If I get stung by a mosquito, I'll kill it, but if it gets away I won't chase it across the field.  If I get attacked by a swarm of bees defending their hive, I won't swat them - I'll protect myself by running away.
The dangers of fighting back are well presented in the other answers, but I'll repeat them:

legality - your reaction might be illegal
collateral damage / joe jobs - your reaction harms a relatively innocent 3rd party

My personal choice of reactions:

Try to keep a decent level of security on my site so attacks have a reduced chance of success.
Gather info about attacks to assess the severity.
Potentially, block the IP, or if it's a bandwidth flood attack, try to get my ISP to block the IPs.  Note that this will likely block non-malicious traffic to your site too (collateral damage), but most of the damage will be to you (reduce traffic / access) rather than to some 3rd party.

Hack-back also leads to a new type of attack: Kallisti.  "Joe Jobs" spoof the source of attack to trick defenders into attacking the spoofed source.  The "Kallisti" attack would try to cause a hack-back loop between 2 or more sites, either to create noise in which to hide the "real" attack or just to cause chaos.  (Hail Eris)
Answer: A related response could be to set-up a honey trap to attract attackers and make them think they succeeded. Let them waste time and effort while you trace them, maybe. Although that sounds like a bad script from a Hollywood film.
Comment: In the same way, this almost answers the question! If adversaries also use this technique, then strike-back can be a waste of time.
Comment: I think entrapment would require you to invite people to hack your site. The difference of a Police Officer offering to buy drugs and a Police Officer being offered to buy drugs; active or passive.
Comment: Isn't this called entrapment (legally speaking) unless the government is doing it?
Answer: An interesting case in the Netherlands is appropriate here.
The Dutch Police (KLPD) brought down some servers that run a big botnet. They deemed it legal to use the botnet now to send a message to the owners of the machines to inform them that they are infected.
There is some discussion about whether it was actually legal, but I think most people agree it's an ethical thing to do.
This case is quite different from what you as a company would face, but if this is already questioned as being not legal when done by the police, one should wonder whether any action towards the attacker can be taken at all.
Answer: Is it ever appropriate to become a criminal and put yourself, your organization and your entire livelihood in jeopardy of legal action? This is not a case of a masked gunman putting you in a fight or flight situation. Yes, you could concoct a scenario where an internet borne attacker is threatening human life through an attack on systems critical to hospitals or some such thing. However, even in those situations, there is no precedent that I am aware of that justifies the same reactive force be applied as in a physical altercation. Likely the systems that you would be attacking are innocent service providers or end users that have been hijacked for malicious purposes. It would be no different than setting fire to an automobile that was stolen and used in a bank robbery.
Immediately plug the holes that an attacker is exploiting. Immediately report the incident to the proper authorities. Do not let your emotions take over and convince you to stoop to the same level as your aggressors.
Answer: Another point to take into account, is how the badguys can subvert your counter-attack.
For example, they can send malicious packets with spoofed IP addresses, knowing you will detect this, and in retaliation attack the source of the attack - or actually, the innocent server that is actually registered at the spoofed IP.
Thus, they are using you to attack their victim, the spoofed 3rd party.
Don't forget, the attacked company will now believe - correctly - that your servers are attacking theirs. Never mind that you believed that you had just cause to do so - that is irrelevant, point of fact that you are actively attacking them. And they will have reason to press charges, or whatever.
An interesting scenario would be if the 3rd party victim is also configured to counter-attack. Then, of course, you will be receiving actual attacks from their server - this time, for real, but of course that was YOUR fault, wasnt it?
Both sides would probably DoS each other before real harm was done... unless they both choose to escalate and scale out... THEY COULD BRING DOWN THE WHOLE INTERTUBES!
Answer: The answer is pretty certainly no, don't do it.
I can imagine a scenario where a worm is attacking you and because you know that the worm spreads via vulnerability X, you know that all computers that are attacking you have vulnerability X. It may be possible for you to use vulnerability X to access the infected computers and warn their users, or even shut them down.
While you might think this is a morally acceptable thing to do, it's very dangerous ground. What if something you do goes wrong, e.g. leading to data loss that wasn't caused by the worm, or you anger the original worm creator who then wants to retaliate against you in another way. It's likely to be illegal in most jurisdictions as well.
Answer: When you are the victim of an attack, your situation implies that you currently have:

a problem;
the protection of the Law;
the moral high ground.

By "fighting back", you loose the third, and most probably the second. You will not necessarily get rid of the problem, though. Fighting back is illegal in most countries; it will prevent you from claiming assistance from police forces and, perhaps more importantly, it will void insurance (your insurance company will be quick at pointing that out). Last but not least, your retaliation may harm bystanders and plunge you into bigger trouble than what you started with.
So, no, not worth it. Use passive protection, and call the police.
Answer: I have an excellent example stated by Ivan Orton (Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney who specializes on IT crimes) during his speech for Stanford online course's students (Sorry I can not upload the video to youtube, because of the policy of website):

Imagine that you have a boutique brokerage company in Seattle.
  Boutique meaning small number of customers, high dollar value
  accounts, and the customers are actively involved in trading on their
  accounts, They depend upon the services that the boutique company
  provides over their website in terms of real-time quotes, real-time
  trading information, trend analysis, and all kinds of services that
  the company provides. That company on one of those typical triple
  witching Fridays which is when three things are happening at the same
  time and the stock market is extremely volatile in Seattle at
  twelve:25,25 their system goes down, that's about 35 minutes before
  closing time on the stock exchange in New York. Their system goes down
  which means they have no active or, or real trading information or, or
  quote information, no ability to make trades, all of their trend
  analysis and other things is down and not available. The boss comes
  screaming back with a comp-sys analysis and says, what's going on and
  fix it. And the sys analyst real quick looks at the IP address, uses
  some of his tools, and he says, it's coming from a computer and a
  router, in particular, at the University of Oregon. And the boss says,
  shut that router down right now. And the guy says, I don't know what
  that router associated with. I don't know what I'm going to be doing.
  And the boss said, we only need it shut down for 35 minutes. You can
  start it back up, you can stop whatever you were doing in 35 minutes.
  But we need our system back up till one:00, and so the guy under
  pressure, shuts the router down. Well, it turns out that the router's
  actually a router associated with the University of Oregon medical
  system and it's a router that controls the distribution of a database
  that lists all the drug interactions that patients at University of
  Oregon have. And a patient comes into the emergency room at that time
  who is a known patient so he's in the system. And in his sys, in his
  data is indications of a couple of drug interactions that are, that
  are high, he has a highly allergic reaction to them. He has a
  condition for which the first line of defense is one of those drugs.
  The doctor's try to access the database, they can't find any
  information, the guy's in real critical situation so they administer
  one of the drugs, and he dies. Then, the system is back up again and
  everything's hunky-dory. That's a radical scenario.
what happens is the family sues the University of Oregon Medical
  System. The University of Oregon Medical System, because they find out
  all about this, sues the boutique in Seattle. What should the boutique
  do?

After having this question he speaks a lot about different similar scenarios in non electronic word (it is too long to put it here, but if someone would like, I would) and in the end he stated: You may be tempted to use active defence and you may have some liability associated with that and keep in mind but right now there is no clear law regarding this issue and a lot depends on the jury (This is not exactly his words - it is shortening of his 7 minutes talk regarding this issue)
I hope this will make it clear, how unclear the situation with active defence is.

Is it ever appropriate to fight back?


Indian Manned Flight to 'Near Space' by ISRO?

Question: I recently read about Google exec Alan Eustace's record skydiving jump from a 'near space' altitude of 135,890 feet and was surprised to learn that the balloon which lofted him up to that height was made by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, in Hyderabad, India. I'd like to then ask whether India has any plans of its own to conduct a high-altitude manned balloon flight, perhaps to validate its own spacesuit designs which are under development. I know that a previous record-setting high-altitude balloon jump by Felix Baumgartner was said to have benefited spacesuit research. Are existing methods of spacesuit-testing cheaper, or would a high-altitude manned balloon flight actually allow for a cost savings, unorthodox though it might be? Also, what would be the approximate cost of such high-altitude balloon flights in USD (millions? tens of millions?) and could such activities ever become a viable area of space tourism?
Comment: There's little benefit to spacesuit research, they can be tested very well in vacuum chambers. Going to the edge of space is cool, but really no more than a stunt.
Comment: India does have many companies producing excellent hobbyist weather balloons too.
Comment: Yes, but nations love to do stunts.
Comment: Given that ISRO seems to be within a decade of a manned, orbital flight (they've already done sub-orbital tests of a prototype of the capsule in order to test the heat shield), I doubt they're going to bother with doing 'near space' balloon flights. Possibly they'll start with a sub-orbital flight, but that would be into space (> 100km altitude) regardless.
Answer: When referring specifically to Felix Baumgartner's jump here are a few things taken from The Guardian's article Felix Baumgartner skydive: the key questions answered:

What was so special about the suit?
Baumgartner's suit and helmet were described by his team as "his
  personal life-support system". The suit was modelled on those worn by
  pilots of high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, but it had never been
  tried in a free-fall before Baumgartner started testing it. It had
  four layers consisting of both "breathable" Gore-Tex, and heat- and
  flame-resistant Nomex. The internal layer was a "comfort liner". Next
  was a "gas membrane" that helped to retain air pressure. A "restraint
  layer" then helped to maintain the suit's shape. Finally, the external
  layer was constructed of Nomex to protect against fire and temperature
  extremes. It was made by a US company called David Clark that has been
  making suits for astronauts and high-altitude aviators since 1941.
How Much did it cost?
The non-reusable balloon used by Baumgartner cost $250,000, with the wider cost to the sponsor Red Bull of the
  whole record attempt estimated to have cost many millions of dollars.
  This will put off the vast majority of copycats, but the high-profile
  stunt is expected to provoke a surge in interest for parachuting.

Refer to the article for some more details about his jump.
So yes, long story short, this was pretty much a stunt and world record attempt so it was extremely expensive. However, there are definitely cheaper ways of testing suits such as one comment mentioned above... vacuum chambers, wind tunnels, and maybe even in use with jet pilots of high altitude.


Cydia on refurbished iPhone 3

Question: I bought a refurbished iPhone that has the Cydia icon on it. Does that mean it is already jailbroken? If so, can I just go ahead and use the apps? Do I have to jailbreak to use it?
Also the iPhone is used on my Tmobile provider and I was told not to update the iOS on iTunes or it will get locked to ATT and I will not be able to use it.
Answer: It certainly sounds like it's been jailbroken, and unlocked with one of the tools rather than by authorised means.
If Cydia works, then it's been jailbroken and there's nothing you need to do.
The downside is that if you're not aware of the unlocking tools, or how to jailbreak in the first place, you either need to start researching these, or avoid doing any official software updates.
There are a great many sites which have guides, some good some bad, and some downright dangerous. I'd recommend http://osxdaily.com and http://blog.iphone-dev.org as the most reliable of sources. The former being a site which reports on developments, and the latter being the people who release most of the tools.

Cydia on refurbished iPhone 3


What can have caused my mead to have the taste of yeast?

Question: I brew my first mead one month ago. I've put 1 dose of honey for about 3.5 of water. Ended up with a 2 liters of must in a pet bottle. I've put 10 grams of yeast (the entire sachet).
Since i started, one month has passed and apparently there is no more fermentation.
So i siphoned it from the pet bottle in two glass bottles.
I just took a sip of the mead and i noticed a very distinct taste of yeast.
What can have happened? Did i put too much yeast? Or is it normal and the taste of yeast is going to fade after i siphoned it from the main container?
Answer: Did you add any yeast nutrients or raisins to the must?  Honey and water sound like a feast for your yeast, but it is really like trying to eat three square meals at an ice-cream parlor.  There is no real nutrition available.  The normal practice with meads is to fortify the must with some packaged yeast-nutrient.  The ancient practice is to throw a few raisins in.  Both techniques work.
Did you ever see any signs of fermentation?  What were the starting and final gravities of your mead?  It is not surprising that all of your fermentation is done after 30 days, but back in the first week, were things bubbling?
If there was, then you are probably okay.  Mead provides an amazing testimony to the power of conditioning.  I have never tasted a one-month old mead that I liked; but I have considered discarding many young batches which later mellowed out and became truly wonderful after 9 months to a year.
If there was never any fermentation, then what you have now is old honey water with yeast in it.  This could be the result of using processed honey which might still have some chemical preservatives in it.  It is odd for honey to have preservatives in it, because honey doesn't spoil.  Still, I have occasionally found (and steered clear of) bottles of discount honey that contain additives.
Comment: There was a problem about one day after the beginning of the fermentation. The must swelled together with the yeast outside the container, through the airlock... It wasn't much and it came back to normal after some hours.
Even after that, the fermentation remained strong for about  one or two weeks, then it gradually decreased. And i used raw honey. I don't have a densimeter, so i couldn't tell the gravity.
Should i stop worrying and just let it rest? Or is there something i could do?
Comment: It sounds like everything went perfectly, (aside for the initial overflow which should have no effect on the finished product).  Put it in a cool dark corner (60-70F) and leave it alone for 6 months.  You can go colder if you want to clear out any suspended particles.  After 6 months, taste it and decide if more time is needed.  I think you will be happily surprised.