Is this grammatically and syntactically correct?     … by a) studying and b) helping   – or should it be:     … a) by studying and b) by helping
When one wants to list various cases/classes/categories/types of objects in a string of conjunctions, is it preferable (or even mandatory) to keep on using (the same) preposition in front of each one them?  Moreover, does singular or plural form of the word "case", "class", "category" make any difference in the previous question?  Examples:   In the present article, we study the case of X, of Y and of Z objects. (in this example, as in most of the ones I have in mind, it is the preposition "of" which is relevant to my question). We study the cases/classes of X and of Y objects. vs. We study the cases/classes of X and Y objects.   Although it is rather clear that, in the singular case, the absence of "of" in later conjuncts may lead to a logical confusion (e.g., mistakenly taken as the one class/case of objects which are both X and Y), when it comes to plural of the words "case", "class", etc., this might not be an issue. Still, there might anyway be a rule in the plural setting as well.
Code block is not properly formatted when placed immediately after a list item Consider the following piece of Markdown code:  This is some regular text.      &gt;&gt;&gt; def factorial(n):     ...     return 1 if n &lt; 2 else n * factorial(n - 1)     ...   * This is a list item.      &gt;&gt;&gt; def factorial(n):     ...     return 1 if n &lt; 2 else n * factorial(n - 1)     ...    Notice that the second code block is preceded by a list item.   Why is the factorial code not properly formatted under these circumstances? To demonstrate the problem, I'll insert the Markdown code show above:    This is some regular text.  &gt;&gt;&gt; def factorial(n): ...     return 1 if n &lt; 2 else n * factorial(n - 1) ...     This is a list item                 def factorial(n):       ...     return 1 if n &lt; 2 else n * factorial(n - 1)       ...               This applies to numbered as well as unnumbered lists. On every bootup it's the same:  /dev/sda1: clean, 908443/38690816 files, 44176803/154733312 blocks   Is it some kind of option Ubuntu uses to ensure filesystem consistency or is there something wrong with my HDD? fsck takes up to 30s while booting and so about triples the time needed otherwise.  Full output (partly in German):  Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done. Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done. Begin: Running /scripts/local-bottom ... done. done. Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom ... done. fsck von util-linux 2.20.1 /dev/sda1: sauber, 908443/38690816 Dateien, 44176803/154733312 Blöcke udevd[623]: unknown key 'SYSFS{idVendor}' in /lib/udev/rules.d/45-libticables.rules:6  udevd[623]: invalid rule '/lib/udev/rules.d/45-libticables.rules:6'   * Starting mDNS/DNS-SD daemon                                                 [ OK ]  * Starting Reload cups, upon starting avahi-daemon to make sure remote queues are populated                                                                   [ OK ]  * Starting configure network device security                                  [ OK ]  * Starting bluetooth daemon                                                   [ OK ]  ####* Starting all other stuff Forgotten the pattern and phone not showing the "forgot pattern" button. I upgraded my Moto G2 to Android Lollipop using over-the-air upgrade. It was awesome but I set a pattern lock which I forgot. Usually after 5 wrong attempts it shows the "forgot password" button but it is not showing that button even after 100 wrong attempts. How to unlock the phone? Showing just color ramp in legend without values Can $3p^4-3p^2+1$ be square number? This or That person Today I heard a speaker use the phrase "this person", referring to the subject-person of the story they were telling, and I heard it as (that person). Between the words “this” or “that” in context with the phrase and story-tense, which should you use. I've just upgraded to Ubuntu 17.10 and am missing the Ubuntu Dock settings, i.e. in gnome-control-center the dock settings are blank:    I think I might be missing the "ubuntu-dock" package, but can't find this anywhere in the software centre.  Also the gnome-control-center was completely missing after the update, and I had to install this separately - not sure if this is related.  I think this is different from  because changing the type of GNOME session doesn't fix the problem. If I go for GNOME* I get no Dock settings section at all, and if I got for Ubuntu* I get the blank Dock settings section described above.  Output of apt-cache policy gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock:  rob@rob-pc:~$ apt-cache policy gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock:   Installed: (none)   Candidate: 0.7   Version table:      0.7 500         500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages         500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main i386 Packages How to prove $x^{n}$ is not uniformly continuous How to prove $x^{n}$ is not uniformly continuous on the interval $[0, +\infty)$? Background image shows in front of 3D objects, not behind them. I've done a quick 3D track in blender and I'm trying to render my output, but the plate I used to track is showing up over my 3d objects.  I want to render the objects in the scene with an alpha channel and comp them over the plate I tracked. My renders however, are covered by the aforementioned plate.  Un-checking "Background Images" in the camera properties (only removes it from the viewport) isn't doing it for my render outputs.  Working on some production tests and am not really proficient with the software yet, my apologies in advance. Probability of rolling 3 mutually exclusive dice The reason that I ask is because this is happening to LiDAR, and I am inclined to use lidar because it is easier to read. The old "too localized" closing reason included "questions that are unlikely to help future visitors".   , that if a question resulted from a typo in the OP code those questions should be closed with "too localized" reason.  The current off-topic reason does not cover that.  Should these questions remain open now, as they do not really fall into any current closure category?  UPDATE  I marked  for diamond moderator attention to be deleted as Robert Harvey hinted below, only to get the flag declined as "declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention".  Can you confidently tell me that this is a useful question that helps the goal of SE? How do I get attention for old, unfixed bug reports and feature requests without official responses here on Meta? I posted a question here on Meta Stack Exchange, or on a per-site meta, regarding a bug I found in the system. I got no comments, or a few comments stating that this is a legitimate bug (and not by design). However, it's been quite a long time, and no official response was ever posted there.  Or, I had an idea for a new feature, but realized it's already requested, either by searching or posting a request myself only to have it closed as a duplicate of the existing one. It's been a while since the original request was filed, but no official response has been made.   I'm aware that staff members are , but either my post isn't about one of the indicated topic areas for which they're accepting escalation requests for that month, or I already flagged to request escalation but it was declined, so the instructions there don't apply for my post.  What can I do to draw attention to meta questions for the SE team, so they can give an official response, and possibly implement the bug fix or feature?  Note: This is different from other general questions which ask for how to get attention for unanswered questions, since the procedures on meta sites are different, and getting an official response isn't necessarily the same as getting a good answer. Option to be notified when a post I downvoted is edited Prologue:  This is an effort to follow up on  which is marked as a duplicate of  highly voted and status-declined feature request (although they seem to be different, one focusing on the OP and the other on the downvoter).   My New Year's resolution was to downvote more.  So on January 3rd or so, I saw a post that was low quality, and downvoted.  Two days later, I came back to see if it was ready to be deleted or had gotten piled with downvotes, to find it with a significant positive score!  At which point, I noticed that the answer had been significantly improved.  So I retracted my downvote, changed it to an upvote, and immediately resumed my dearth of downvoting again.  I think I have a responsibility to downvote bad posts, despite that oh-so-painful -1 rep penalty.  But if I am also going to have the responsibility to follow up on every downvote I cast, I'm not going to bother. I don't want my downvote to leave a residual penalty on posts that were once low quality, and I am not going to trouble myself to keep checking up on every post I downvoted.  Can a downvoter have an option to be notified when a post they voted down was edited?  I wouldn't make this an automatic thing, because not all downvoters want it, and it isn't applicable to all cases of downvoting (although  that this should be part of the responsibility of a downvoter).  Personally, I would make this a universal toggle on-off option on the user profile page, not a question-by-question option, but I don't have strong feelings about it. Process management and high technology weapon. Novel name and author? I am looking for help to point me out at a very old novel (likely from the '60s) about two empires at interstellar war. When it comes to starships, one is technologically very advanced, and the other has very low and inefficient technology.  The highly advanced empire has apparently strong chances to win the war, in particular considering a new technology they were developing. I remember the technology to work like this: consider the space as a flat surface, and on this surface, a disk around the spaceship. When the technology was turned on, this disk was stretched out, as made of rubber, so that it produced a cone, with the tip being the spaceship. The spaceship was therefore teleported 10 parsec away (if I remember correctly), but retained all the connections to the original position. If the spaceship moved, the cone moved as well. This allowed to move in position among enemy ships completely unnoticed, by stretching while afar, then moving in the proper position 10 parsecs away, then destretching.  Despite this technology, the empire lost the war because of delays. It's a perfect example of how having a disruptive technology does not guarantee to win against the competitors.  I am trying to find out the author and name of this novel, hopefully with the date of publication and in which journal/magazine. Is there a function whose inverse is exactly the reciprocal of the function, that is $f^{-1} = \frac{1}{f}$? Is there a function whose inverse is exactly the reciprocal of the function? That is $f^{-1} = \frac{1}{f}$.  We know that the inverse of a function is not necessarily equal to its reciprocal in general. How to create a pattern or tiles from rotated elements Question involving the Cauchy-Goursat Theorem Show $\int_C \frac{dz}{(z-z_0)^n} = 2\pi i$ when $n = 1$ and 0 when $n \gt 1$   I'm not entirely sure how to approach this one.  Any help would be much appreciated. Referencing without captions appearing but keeping numbering What are the differences between proofs based on simulation and proofs based on games?