Is it OK to retrospectively close as a duplicate? Suppose a question is asked, answered and accepted, then at some later date another duplicate question is asked, also answered and accepted, but no one picks up the duplication.  If the second question/answer is "better" (more votes for both question and answer), is it OK to close the first question as a duplicate, even though at the time it was posed it was a new question?  It seems OK to me, but there may be some etiquette aspect I'm not considering.
Opinions on closing an older question as a duplicate of a newer question What's everyone's opinion on closing an older question as a duplicate of a newer one, if the newer one is clearly the better resource? I'm looking at a special case right now, where the two were posted by the same person; the  was migrated to SU before a commenter pointed out it was a . Is it considered good practice to close the older as a duplicate of the newer?  More generally, is it ok to do that for separate questions posted by different people, if the older question went unanswered but the newer has a good answer?  (I should probably mention I saw , but I think this is separate)
What good are free groups? In , one learns two definitions of free groups associating with sets.        Let $A$ be a set, the free group of $A$, $F(A)$ is the initial object in the category $\mathcal{C}$, where \begin{equation} \operatorname{Obj}(\mathcal{C})=\{A\xrightarrow{g}G\}, \end{equation}where the codomain $G$ are groups, and \begin{equation} \operatorname{Hom}(\mathcal{C})=\{\text{Commutative Diagrams } A\xrightarrow{g_1}G_1\xrightarrow{\phi}G_2\xleftarrow{g_2}A\}  \end{equation} where $\phi$ are group homomorphisms.   Also $F(A)$ has the concrete construction with elements being non-redundant words with alphabet $A$, and the group multiplication being juxtaposition and reduction.      But what good are free groups? Why are they useful?  says they are useful in topology, but does not explain why explicity.   Can someone give some examples that an undergraduate can understand? I am asking about examples that can show the usefulness of this abstract construction. So I guess the identification of $\mathbb{Z}=F({a})$ does not really count. Please tutor the usage of patchcmd and xpatch I understand that the  package provides a command \patchcommand that can be used to add material at the beginning and/or end of the replacement text of an existing macro. It works for macros with any number of normal arguments but has limitations for macros with optional arguments.   was introduced to take care of the above limitations as well as provide some additional functionality.   Now, when I try to comprehend the usage of the above packages by reading the user documentations (, ), I get the feeling that they move to implementation details a little too quickly compared to other package documentations. There are not enough explanations or examples.  I also tried to grasp the concepts by reading the  and more or less understood whatever is presented there. However, that is not enough.  So, do you think we can ask for a complete tutorial on the usage of patchcmd and xpatch? Explaining the usage of the relevant commands like \patchcmd, \pretocmd and \apptocmd as well as, \xpatchcmd, \xpretocmd and \xapptocmd with sufficient examples should suffice. implementing a shell in C What are the basis for co-countable and co-finite topologies I am trying to understand what mathematics is really built up of. I thought mathematical logic was the foundation of everything. But from reading a book in mathematical logic, they use "="(equals-sign), functions and relations.  Now is the "=" taken as undefined? I have seen it been defined in terms of the identity relation.  But in order to talk about functions and relations you need set theory.  However,  seems to be a part of mathematical logic.  Does this mean that (naive) set theory comes before sentential and predicate logic? Is (naive)set-theory at the absolute bottom, where we can define relations and functions and the eqality relation. And then comes sentential logic, and then predicate logic?  I am a little confused because when I took an introductory course, we had a little logic before set-theory. But now I see in another book on introduction to proofs that set-theory is in a chapter before logic. So what is at the bottom/start of mathematics, logic or set theory?, or is it circular at the bottom?  Can this be how it is at the bottom?  naive set-theory $\rightarrow$ sentential logic $\rightarrow $ predicate logic $\rightarrow$ axiomatic set-theory(ZFC) $\rightarrow$ mathematics  (But the problem with this explanation is that it seems that some naive-set theory proofs use logic...)  (The arrows are of course not "logical" arrows.)  simple explanation of the problem:  a book on logic uses at the start: functions, relations, sets, ordered pairs, "="  a book on set theory uses at the start: logical deductions like this: "$B \subseteq A$", means every element in B is in A, so if $C \subseteq B, B \subseteq A$, a proof can be "since every element in C is in B, and every element in B is in A, every element of C is in A: $C \subseteq A$". But this is first order logic? ($(c \rightarrow b \wedge b \rightarrow a)\rightarrow (c\rightarrow a)$).  Hence, both started from each other? Soft Thresholding CUDA implementation Google Voice Recognition on iOS In the movies, the pack of Uruk-Hai capture Merry and Pippin, and are bringing them back to Saruman as quickly as possible.  Why didn't they use Wargs to carry the Hobbits instead of packing them on their backs?    Or, better yet, why didn't the Nazgul fly down and take them on their Fell Beasts? How to remove desktop environments? I installed few environments that I wanted to try out on Ubuntu 12.04, but none of them worked at all. It could be that I installed them all at the same time, meaning the OS didn't get a chance to work everything out, but either way, they didn't work. I would now like to remove them.   The one's that I installed are Xubuntu/Xfce, Lubuntu/LXDE, Kubuntu/KDE, Fluxbox, OpenBox, cinnamon, and MATE. I installed them. Everything seemed to have been working properly until I actually tried to use the shells and nothing loaded at all. Except for Fluxbox, I think that one worked. I want to know of any way to repair or perhaps just remove the packages entirely. I might have already removed them because I did the apt-get remove command on all of them, but they were still in the list on the login screen. Let me filter jobs by the employer's Joel Test Scores Do the beacon lighters really live on top of the mountains? Following this image I found online:    Do the beacon lighters really live on top of the mountains?  It seems really cold on top of some of these mountains and there are no villages or whatsoever. I want to construct a complex power series with the radius of convergence $R=1$ that diverges in:  1) $k$ points on the circle $\{|z|=1\}$.  2) countable number of points on the circle  I have already crafted series that converges on the whole circle and diverges on the whole circle.  Can anybody help with the problem?  Update: I have googled a series $\sum{\frac{z^{kn}}{kn}}$ that is an answer for 1). Though I still need help for the countable case. I had internet connection, but when I upgraded my VGA and restarted my PC then everything for eth0 has gone.     When I used ifdown:     ifdown: interface eth0 not configured   Is there something I could do?    EDIT: Content of /etc/network/interfaces    auto lo iface lo inet loopback   When I ifconfig I don't have these lines:    inet addr:192.168.1.5  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::219:5bff:fe5e:a5e/64 Scope:Link   In the Terminal typed:  sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces   and then added these lines in the bottom:  auto eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp   then I typed:    sudo ifdown eth0 sudo ifup eth0   when I send the second command I received the below message:    No DHCPOFFERS received No working leases in persistent database - sleeping   Any help? Fly and Two Trains Riddle I'm getting a NoSuchMethodError error when running my Java program.  What's wrong and how do I fix it? How do I set up an account with multiple users? vertical spacing in nested fraction I have complicated math expression:    Vertical spacing between text and fraction line is too small. I tried to define new \frac command (with amsmath package) with adjustable vertical spaces. As you can see, the result is not satisfying:    \documentclass[a4paper,fleqn,leqno]{article} \usepackage{polyglossia} \usepackage{color,pifont,fontspec} \usepackage[top=2.54cm,bottom=2.54cm,left=2.54cm,right=2.54cm]{geometry} \usepackage{tikz,tikz-3dplot,graphicx} \usepackage{mathtools,breqn,amsmath} \usepackage[fontsize=12]{scrextend} \usepackage{array,multirow} \usepackage{pgfplots} \DeclareMathSizes{12}{14}{14}{10} \newcommand{\myfrac}[3][0pt]{\genfrac{}{}{}{}{\raisebox{#1}{$#2$}}{\raisebox{-#1}{$#3$}}} \begin{document} \begin{dmath*}[breakdepth={0},style={\mathindent=0pt},spread={10pt}] {n=\myfrac[3pt]{\myfrac[3pt]{0,0625N+0,0215}{2}-0,043}{\myfrac[3pt]{\myfrac[3pt]{\scriptstyle 0,0625N+0,0215}{\scriptstyle 2}-0,043}{\myfrac[3pt]{\scriptstyle N}{\scriptstyle 2}-1}+0,0215}} \end{dmath*} \end{document}   How can I enlarge verticall spacing in whole fraction? When trying to install CrossOver deb I get "Error: Dependency is not satisfiable libpng12-0" I have tried to install libpng12-0 but it still doesn't work.  Here:    How do I fix this? What is the meaning of colon (:) operator in "uint isWidget : 1;" in Qt? How to remove the Mail icon indicator applet?