What I have:  What I would want (sorry for a terrible sketch):  How to convert object/generated coordinates in such way?
In Cycles, is there a way to create a procedural texture that follows the longitudinal lines of a sphere? Like a beach ball or globe? The texture should be able to be mapped to any sphere-shaped object, not just perfect spheres.    My current approach is to use a rotated wave texture, but that doesn't come from the poles (It uses latitudes)
Recover Data from Card that cannnot be read I am trying to help a friend who is very concerned that she has just lost all of the data on her 32GB SanDisk microSD card.  I told her I would post this and see if anyone could offer help.  Here are the details:   The SanDisk microSD card is less than two years old.  Probably only about a year old.  The store will take it back, but that doesn't really help.  She wants her data. She used the card in her Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone for over a month.  The phone was never exposed to water or temperature extremes. Today, her phone suddenly said something like "Your SD card is blank or an unsupported format". Her phone was then unable to read the SanDisk microSD card at all.   Here's what she has tried:   Rebooting her phone.  Had no effect. Taking out the SanDisk microSD card and putting it inside a full-size SD card adapter, and inserting it into a Windows 7 SP1 computer.  The computer did not recognize its presence at all. Putting the SanDisk microSD card into a USB 2.0 external card reader and inserting the card reader into a USB port on a Windows 7 SP1 computer.  The computer recognized the card reader and installed drivers for it.  The card reader shows up as 'Removable Disk' in Windows Explorer.  Clicking on 'Removable Disk' in Windows Explorer results in the error "Insert disk: Please insert a disk into the Removable Disk". After trying #3, tried opening the 'Removable Disk' in FreeCommander.  Doing so results in the error "The device is not ready".   She does not have access to a linux box, but does have access to her Android phone.  What can she do to recover the data on her 32GB SanDisk microSD card? Restrict the scope of a command to the execution of another command List files sorted by the number of lines they contain Can you explain the "Axiom of choice" in simple terms? As I'm sure many of you do, I read the  webcomic regularly. The  involves a joke about the Axiom of Choice, which I didn't get.     I went to Wikipedia to see what the Axiom of Choice is, but as often happens with things like this, the Wikipedia entry is not in plain, simple, understandable language. Can someone give me a nice simple explanation of what this axiom is, and perhaps explain the XKCD joke as well? Viewed, deleted comments staying in inbox Lets start with a life-like scenario.  User A receives an offensive comment in his inbox from the OP of a question. A then clicks on the notification in order to flag the offending comment. A mod sees the flag and deletes the comment. Shortly after, the question is also deleted. Because A clicked on the notification in the inbox, that notification is still in A's inbox, with the offensive part of the comment still visible. Edit: The flag was marked helpful because the post was deleted, not because the comment was deleted by a mod.  Please note that although the behaviour of the notifications is as it is supposed to be, this does not fix the possible problem of such notifications &quot;hanging around&quot;. User A can't get rid of that comment in any way, and it may be a long time before it is flushed out by new messages. This issue is mentioned in  but it is supposed to be that comments on a post that you own can hang around, not on someone else's post.  is speaking about comments which have not been read and this . To me this seem like an important issue. To have to see an offensive message every time you open your inbox is not a good thing. I can think of two ways in which this problem can be avoided:  Make sure notifications for deleted comments don't hang around (this I'm sure is the easier option) Allow users to delete unwanted notifications (this could be useful, as this would also allow users to remove notifications that they are not interested in, or even just to keep their inbox uncluttered. It would most likely be hard to implement, though.)  What are your thoughts on this? Do Skyrim mods work with the Special Edition? I typically play Skyrim with a number of mods installed, and while I'm excited to try the Special Edition, there are a few mods that I'd much rather not play without.  Can I install mods built for the normal Skyrim game with the Special Edition, or do I have to wait until mod authors write new versions before I can play with those mods? Configuring ADB for Nexus 4 on Ubuntu 11.10 What is "it" in the following sentence: It is clear that Bob likes doughnuts I am very confused. Unless I am mistaken, I know "it" has to be a noun of some sort, but I am unable to figure out what noun "it" is referring to.   What is "it" in the following sentence:      It is clear that Bob likes doughnuts.   Heres another couple of examples:     It is impossible to fly. I have a simple question regarding "conditional probability" and "Likelihood". (I have already surveyed this question  but to no avail.)  It starts from the Wikipedia . They say this:     The likelihood of a set of parameter values, $\theta$, given   outcomes $x$, is equal to the probability of those observed outcomes   given those parameter values, that is      $$\mathcal{L}(\theta \mid x) = P(x \mid \theta)$$   Great! So in English, I read this as: "The likelihood of parameters equaling theta, given data X = x, (the left-hand-side), is equal to the probability of the data X being equal to x, given that the parameters are equal to theta". (Bold is mine for emphasis).  However, no less than 3 lines later on the same page, the Wikipedia entry then goes on to say:     Let $X$ be a random variable with a discrete probability distribution   $p$ depending on a parameter $\theta$. Then the function      $$\mathcal{L}(\theta \mid x) = p_\theta (x) = P_\theta (X=x), \, $$      considered as a function of $\theta$, is called the likelihood   function (of $\theta$, given the outcome $x$ of the random variable   $X$). Sometimes the probability of the value $x$ of $X$ for the   parameter value $\theta$ is written as $P(X=x\mid\theta)$; often   written as $P(X=x;\theta)$ to emphasize that this differs from   $\mathcal{L}(\theta \mid x) $ which is not a conditional probability,   because $\theta$ is a parameter and not a random variable.   (Bold is mine for emphasis). So, in the first quote, we are literally told about a conditional probability of $P(x\mid\theta)$, but immediately afterwards, we are told that this is actually NOT a conditional probability, and should be in fact written as $P(X = x; \theta)$?   So, which one is is? Does the likelihood actually connote a conditional probability ala the first quote? Or does it connote a simple probability ala the second quote?  EDIT:  Based on all the helpful and insightful answers I have received thus far, I have summarized my question - and my understanding thus far as so:    In English, we say that: "The likelihood is a function of parameters, GIVEN the observed data." In math, we write it as: $L(\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta \mid \mathbf{X}=x)$. The likelihood is not a probability.  The likelihood is not a probability distribution.  The likelihood is not a probability mass. The likelihood is however, in English: "A product of probability distributions, (continuous case), or a product of probability masses, (discrete case), at where $\mathbf{X} = x$, and parameterized by $\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta$." In math, we then write it as such: $L(\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta \mid \mathbf{X}=x) = f(\mathbf{X}=x ; \mathbf{\Theta}= \theta) $ (continuous case, where $f$ is a PDF), and as $L(\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta \mid \mathbf{X}=x) = P(\mathbf{X}=x ; \mathbf{\Theta}= \theta) $ (discrete case, where $P$ is a probability mass). The takeaway here is that at no point here whatsoever is a conditional probability coming into play at all.  In Bayes theorem, we have: $P(\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta \mid \mathbf{X}=x) = \frac{P(\mathbf{X}=x \mid \mathbf{\Theta}= \theta) \ P(\mathbf{\Theta}= \theta)}{P(\mathbf{X}=x)}$. Colloquially, we are told that "$P(\mathbf{X}=x \mid  \mathbf{\Theta}= \theta)$ is a likelihood", however, this is not true, since $\mathbf{\Theta}$ might be an actual random variable. Therefore, what we can correctly say however, is that this term $P(\mathbf{X}=x \mid \mathbf{\Theta}= \theta)$ is simply "similar" to a likelihood. (?) [On this I am not sure.]   EDIT II:  Based on @amoebas answer, I have drawn his last comment. I think it's quite elucidating, and I think it clears up the main contention I was having. (Comments on the image).    EDIT III:   I extended @amoebas comments to the Bayesian case just now as well: Can Rails Routing Helpers (i.e. mymodel_path(model)) be Used in Models? Fast(est) and intuitive ways to look at matrix multiplication? Easy way to switch default sound output device double movement in Scrabble Can you resolve a dispute between myself and my girlfriend? She recently won a game with what I think is a double movement (although there's no mention of this in the rule book).  She put one two letters down to make one word, which also scored linked to another letter. But she then added another letter immediately to the left of the finished word, which then extended the second word. I just don't think you can make a second movement like this in scrabble!    My sister placed down W, D and E, the ones that I circled in red. Is she allowed to do that? I told her it was impossible is it?  Can you resolve this for me please? Is it safe to check floating point values for equality to 0? I know you can't rely on equality between double or decimal type values normally, but I'm wondering if 0 is a special case.  While I can understand imprecisions between 0.00000000000001 and 0.00000000000002, 0 itself seems pretty hard to mess up since it's just nothing.  If you're imprecise on nothing, it's not nothing anymore.  But I don't know much about this topic so it's not for me to say.  double x = 0.0; return (x == 0.0) ? true : false;   Will that always return true? Taking a skyline photo with a person closer to the camera during night time How can I take a photo which shows the skyline and the person who is standing around six feet away from the camera with proper lighting at night?   For taking just the skyline I've used long shutter speed and it turned out great, but when including a person on it, the person becomes  blurry because it's impossible for a person to remain static for that long.   Ps.  I do have two flashes, 35mm prime lens as well as 18-300mm zoom lenses as well. The camera I use is Nikon D7200. using this command I changed root password   mysqladmin -u root password fg$pkh@567fghu   And now I cant access mysql. Is this because mysql parse the chars other than what I expect?  Also I completely removed and installed mysql and Problem is extant. How do I remove mysql so that I get rid of password? Is a passport needed when flying within Mexico as a U.S permanent resident? I tried to use the usb-creator.exe from Ubuntu 10.10 desktop i386 ISO image and it does create an USB stick that doesn't boot. When I try to boot from it I get:     Operating System not found.   I try to do this from Windows 7 x64. I'm not looking to create a live Ubuntu media, only an installation USB disk.  I repeated the process several times and I even tried to reformat the USB drive (FAT32), no success yet.  The USB stick is a 8GB one. In follow up to , it appears that some numbers cannot be represented by floating point at all, and instead are approximated.  How are floating point numbers stored?  Is there a common standard for the different sizes?  What kind of gotchas do I need to watch out for if I use floating point?  Are they cross-language compatible (ie, what conversions do I need to deal with to send a floating point number from a python program to a C program over TCP/IP)? Does it mean neither a muslim nor a pakistani anymore? Or it means muslim and ex pakistani. I will be very thankfull if you people kindly elaborate this for me.