Upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 failed I upgraded from Ubuntu 11.10 to 12.04 using the update manager. At the end of the upgrade the console said the upgrade had failed and it forced me to restart.   After a restart I am not able to do anything other than logging in. I just see a blue screen with the Ubuntu one icon. I can open applications, but nothing beyond that. I opened the terminal but after that I cannot enter anything - no keyboard input works.  Basically the laptop has been rendered useless. Any pointers on how to recover?  This is on a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with a 64 bit AMD Sempron Processor.
I can't boot into a usable system after updates. What should I do? Since some system updates, my machine can no longer boot properly. I am no Ubuntu guru. I do not have a week to spare diagnosing the issue. I just want to retrieve important data from this machine's hard drive and get a working computer again ASAP.  What should I do?
Ellipsis in array initialization in C kernel module Show that $\text{C}/c \cong (c/(\text{C}^{\text{op}}))^{\text{op}}$ I'm self studying from Category Theory in Context by Emily Riehl and have encountered the following question regarding slice categories:     Let $\text{C}$ be a category and $c$ be an object in $\text{C}$. Show that $\text{C}/c \cong (c/(\text{C}^{\text{op}}))^{\text{op}}$    The exercise appears in an chapter that introduces the notion of opposite categories and duality proofs.     My intuition of why the statement is true comes from the following observation:  Let $x,y$ be objects in $\mathbf{C}$ (or equivalently $\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}$). Let $g^{\text{op}} : c \to y$ and $f^{\text{op}} : c \to x$ be objects in $c/(\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}})$. By the definition of slice category, there exists a morphism $h^{\text{op}} : y \to x$ in $\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}$ such that the diagram below commutes:  $\hskip2in$   Now the 'corresponding diagram' in the opposite category $(c/(\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}))^{\text{op}}$ would be:  $\hskip2in$    which, as I understand it, would also be commutative. Now, to me, this indicates:   that the objects in $(c/(\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}))^{\text{op}}$ are the same as the objects in $\mathbf{C}/c$, namely, a morphism in $\mathbf{C}$ from an object $z \in \mathbf{C}$ to $c$. the commutativity of the seconds diagram describes morphisms $h$ in both $\mathbf{C}/c$ and $(c/(\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}))^{\text{op}}$ if you reverse the arrows again you return to the same diagram. This makes me think you could construct a map between morphisms by first making a map from $ \mathbf{C}/c \to (\mathbf{C}/c)^{\text{op}} ( \cong c/(\mathbf{C}^{\text{op}}) )$ by $h \mapsto h^{op}$     Now, what I am really looking for is a way to structure a proof. I feel like I have some intuition but am very unsure of how to write it down in a concise way. I am new to category theory so I'm still very much learning how to construct these types of proofs using duality; I feel like what I have written is maybe overkill but I'm trying to be as explicit as possible to make sure I understand everything.  In particular, I don't know how I would get a concrete correspondence between morphisms in the two categories that respects associativity of composition etc.  Any help or pointers would be appreciated! Get PHP to stop replacing '.' characters in $_GET or $_POST arrays? If I pass PHP variables with . in their names via $_GET PHP auto-replaces them with _ characters. For example:  &lt;?php echo "url is ".$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']."&lt;p&gt;"; echo "x.y is ".$_GET['x.y'].".&lt;p&gt;"; echo "x_y is ".$_GET['x_y'].".&lt;p&gt;";   ... outputs the following:  url is /SpShipTool/php/testGetUrl.php?x.y=a.b x.y is . x_y is a.b.   ... my question is this: is there any way I can get this to stop? Cannot for the life of me figure out what I've done to deserve this  PHP version I'm running with is 5.2.4-2ubuntu5.3. AppFabric / WF 4.0 instances stuck despite no bookmark and pending timer Secretary problem - why is the optimal solution optimal? I have read about this problem:    But I want to see how it is proven that the "optimal" solution is indeed optimal. I understand how to prove that if the optimal solution is of the form "wait for $t$ candidates and then choose the next best one" then $t=n/e$ is optimal; but why is the best strategy of that form in the first place?  A complete proof is not required - a reference to a good text discussing this is good as well. It is well known that confidence intervals and testing statistical hypothesis are strongly related. My questions is focused on comparison of means for two groups based on a numerical variable. Let's assume that such hypothesis is tested using t-test. On the other side, one can compute confidence intervals for means of both groups. Is there any relation between overlapping of confidence intervals and the rejection of the null hypothesis that means are equal (in favor of the alternative that means differ - two-sided test)? For example, a test could reject the null hypothesis iff the confidence intervals do not overlap. I've been thinking of animating some dice and while most are easy to make, I'm having some trouble figuring out a way to generate a regular dodecahedron. I could hand build it but it would be potentially uneven. Would using the base of a 5 sided cylinder and then some variation on spin be the best option or is there a better way? Wildcard not working in subprocess call using shlex Using Pigeonhole Principle to prove two numbers in a subset of $[2n]$ divide each other Let $n$ be greater or equal to $1$, and let $S$ be an $(n+1)$-subset of $[2n]$. Prove that there exist two numbers in $S$ such that one divides the other.   Any help is appreciated! What does if __name__ == "__main__": do? Given the following code, what does the if __name__ == "__main__": do?  # Threading example import time, thread  def myfunction(string, sleeptime, lock, *args):     while True:         lock.acquire()         time.sleep(sleeptime)         lock.release()         time.sleep(sleeptime)  if __name__ == "__main__":     lock = thread.allocate_lock()     thread.start_new_thread(myfunction, ("Thread #: 1", 2, lock))     thread.start_new_thread(myfunction, ("Thread #: 2", 2, lock)) Different mechanics of \hyperlink vs. \hyperref I am fiddling around with the hyperref package to build a hypertext structure into my pdf. At first glance, hyperref provides two similar macros to put links between parts of my document: \hyperlink{target}{text} and \hyperref[target]{text}. You might notice their slightly different syntax. What really interests me is their different working mechanics. I will illustrate this by the following example: \documentclass{article}  \usepackage{pdfpages} \usepackage[]{hyperref} \usepackage{mwe}  \begin{document}  \section{Section Heading} \label{sectionheading}  \includepdf[link=true, linkname=pdfpage]{example-image}   Link to section works with \hyperref[sectionheading]{hyperref} and with \hyperlink{sectionheading}{hyperlink} (but with slightly different targets on the page).  Link to pdf works with \hyperlink{pdfpage.1}{hyperlink} but not with \hyperref[pdfpage.1]{hyperref} (and not this way, either: \hyperref[pdfpage]{hyperref}).  \end{document}  To link to the labeled section heading, I may use both commands. While \hyperref directs my pdf viewer directly to the linked section, \hyperlink directs me somewhere slightly different, so I can see more context. To link to the \includepdf of pdfpages however, I may only use \hyperlink. \hyperref does not work at all. I suspect this is because of a subtle difference in their working mechanisms. While checking the aux file, I found a line \newlabel{sectionheading}{{1}{1}{Section Heading}{section.1}{}} which \hyperref seems to use as a target. However, I did not find any similar target for the included pdf. My question: I suspect, I understand the workings of \label and \ref very well. \hyperref seems to work quite similarly with the added clickability. Could you please explain to me how \hyperlink does work differently and how it is implemented? E.g. what mechanics explain the difference when clicked on the link and where and how are the link targets stored in the first place? How to select top 10 records from each category Does it matter what I choose for serialVersionUID when extending Serializable classes in Java? I will be getting a point-and-shoot camera for taking portraits and only portraits.  Specifically portraits with a shallow depth of field.   Groups portraits sometimes.  It's just too much work to add lens blur at post-prod.  I understand that setting a P&amp;S on macro mode gives a shallow focus and DOF.    How do I read P&amp;S camera specs to shortlist those with the shallowest depth of field?   Added: By point-and-shoot, I mean a camera that is easy to use -- Not necessarily compact, inexpensive, or current.  Also, if there are two or three factors/specs to get a shallow depth of field, then which spec contributes the most to bokeh? which is second most contributing? the third, etc.? Let's say I'm running a simple server and have accept()ed a connection from a client.  What is the best way to tell when the client has disconnected? Normally, a client is supposed to send a close command, but what if it disconnects manually or loses network connection altogether? How can the server detect or handle this? How to say that something is (not) random I want to compare two things, one of which is random and the other is not, in favor of the latter. I'd like to do it in a more sophisticated way than simply using the word "random".  Like, for example,     In this case, your pay will not depend on the roll of the dice.   But Google Ngrams doesn't find a single occurrence of "depend on the roll of the dice", so I guess there's something wrong with this particular phrase. What would be a better substitute? How to calculate polygon areas and perimeters using QGIS? Using QGIS, if I load a polygon layer and make a new column, how do I fill that column with the:   area of each polygon and another column with length of the perimeter of each polygon? To show that $\sum a_nb_n$ is absolutely convergent How Do I get into the castle walls? Quotient ring of Gaussian integers $\mathbb{Z}[i]/(a+bi)$ when $a$ and $b$ are NOT coprime The isomorphism $\mathbb{Z}[i]/(a+bi) \cong \Bbb Z/(a^2+b^2)\Bbb Z$ is , when the integers $a$ and $b$ are coprime. But what happens when they are not coprime, say $(a,b)=d&gt;1$?      — For instance if $p$ is prime (which is not coprime with $0$) then $$\mathbb{Z}[i]/(p) \cong \mathbb{F}_p[X]/(X^2+1) \cong \begin{cases} \mathbb{F}_{p^2} &amp;\text{if } p \equiv 3 \pmod 4\\ \mathbb{F}_{p} \times \mathbb{F}_{p} &amp;\text{if } p \equiv 1 \pmod 4 \end{cases}$$ (because $-1$ is a square mod $p$ iff $(-1)^{(p-1)/2}=1$).  — More generally, if $n=p_1^{r_1} \cdots p_m^{r_m} \in \Bbb N$, then  each pair of integers $p_j^{r_j}$ are coprime, so that by CRT we get $$\mathbb{Z}[i]/(n) \cong \mathbb{Z}[i]/(p_1^{r_1}) \times \cdots \times \mathbb{Z}[i]/(p_m^{r_m})$$  I was not sure how to find the structure of $\mathbb{Z}[i]/(p^{r}) \cong (\Bbb Z/p^r \Bbb Z)[X] \,/\, (X^2+1)$ when $p$ is prime and $r&gt;1$.  — Even more generally, in order to determine the structure of $\mathbb{Z}[i]/(a+bi)$ with $a+bi=d(x+iy)$ and $(x,y)=1$, we could try to use the CRT, provided that $d$ is coprime with $x+iy$ in $\Bbb Z[i]$. But this is not always true: for $d=13$ and $x+iy=2+3i$, we can't find Gauss integers $u$ and $v$ such that $du + (x+iy)v=1$, because this would mean that $(2+3i)[(2-3i)u+v]=1$, i.e. $2+3i$ is a unit in $\Bbb Z[i]$ which is not because its norm is $13 \neq ±1$.  — I was not able to go further. I recall that my general question is to known what $\mathbb{Z}[i]/(a+bi)$ is isomorphic to, when $a$ and $b$ are integers which are not coprime (for instance $a=p^r,b=0$ or $d=(a,b) = a^2+b^2&gt;1$).  Thank you for your help!