"In and of itself"? What does it mean? "It might be different if he were flagging down a passing car or trying to phone for help, but typing, in and of itself, is not an inherently dramatic activity."  In this sentence, I do not understand the phrase "in and of itself"  There should be some difference between the prepositions "in" and "of" in this context.   Please explain in as much detail as possible!
What is the reasoning for the idiom "in and of itself" having the meaning it has? "In and of itself" is a phrase I find myself using all the time. But in and of itself, the phrase "in and of itself" has no meaning. That is, the individual words don't seem to contribute to the whole meaning of the phrase.
How to solve this integral? $I=\int{e^x \Big(2\log x+\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{x^2}\Big)dx}$ $$I=\int{e^x \Big(2\log x+\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{x^2}\Big)dx}$$ I have tried to use many methods of substitution  But I am aware of a formula  $$I=\int{e^x[f(x)+f'(x)]dx}=e^xf(x)+C$$  but can this formula be applied to the above equation What does the decay constant mean? In my curriculum, the  is "the probability of decay per unit time"  To me, this seems non-sensical, as the decay constant can be greater than one, which would imply that a particle has a probability of decaying in a time span that is greater than 1.  Can someone explain this? What is the best collation to use for MySQL with PHP? How / can you connect Ethernet devices together without magnetics? How do you wire it up? What sorts of practical limitations are there on doing this?  To clarify, I'm not trying to connect two computers here. I'm thinking specifically of creating a small network of microcontrollers on a single board. Lets say the total length of a network segment is no longer than 6 inches. This would be for 10BaseT or at most 100BaseT. Here is the blender window I have:    As you see, it doesn't have the menu that is usually displayed at the top of the screen.  How can I get the menu back? Can matter really fall through an event horizon? I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10, with the new keyboard handling system. The little "switch keyboard" option does not let me set it to Alt+Shift. How can I get this keyboard binding, as I have absolutely no interest in using the Mac-esque Super+Space combo? What are the best practices for battery longevity? How to properly denoise renderings? Since the Denoise feature was added to Blender I only use the default setting with it and it really does the work. But sometimes the denoise is noticable on some of my renders. How can I overcome the blurred effect? Denoising for me is a big help because my system is quite aged. I'm using the following syntax for my code snippets  \begin{minipage}{\textwidth} \begin{lstlisting}[caption=&lt;something&gt;, label=&lt;something&gt;] The REST Endpoint URL     is http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/  To request the flickr.test.echo service,     invoke like this:    http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/       ?method=flickr.test.echo&amp;name=value  By default, REST requests will send a REST response. \end{lstlisting} \end{minipage}   and I would like to have  \begin{code}[&lt;caption&gt;, &lt;label&gt;] ... code ... \end{code}   which would behave exactly the same.   So I tried this thing but it won't compile and I can't spot the problem  \newenvironment{code}[2][]%     {         \minipage{\textwidth}          \lstset{             basicstyle=\ttfamily,             breaklines=true,             captionpos=b,             frame=bottomline,             extendedchars=true         }         \begin{lstlisting}[caption=#1, label=#2]     }     {         \end{lstlisting}         \endminipage     }   Error when running pdflatex  ! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:�\expandafter not set up for use with LaTeX.  See the inputenc package documentation for explanation. Type  H &lt;return&gt;  for immediate help. Where is the password stored for ssh authentication? It's known that when you're connecting to a wrong server via ssh and send your password  to it, your password comes in a plain text and a server saves it by default. Probably. I wonder, where I can retrieve it? I don't see it in /var/log/auth.log, although I do see all the attempts to authenticate. Custom unique constraint, only enforced if one column has a specific value Which one should be used?      To me, it makes no difference, but I'm not really sure why.   vs     For me, it makes no difference, but I'm not really sure why. What's the meaning "them" here? We just had a scenario where the enemy set up a 'death trap' with arrow slits covering a corridor, allowing them to pop in, shoot, then pop out -- all without actually entering the corridor.  Which was fine in and of itself, until my cleric ran through the corridor at top speed, with Spirit Guardians up.  The DM and I discussed it, and as far as we can tell the spell doesn't require a line of sight and isn't blocked by walls -- just being 'in range' gets you the damage.  So I wiped out an entire encounter with one well placed third level spell.  In and of itself, that doesn't seem too OP -- at level 5/6 a third level spell is a pretty big investment!  But it still seems a bit odd that I can do it without even LOS.  Are there any rules I'm missing? So I understand that this has happened in the past: , but all of the &quot;duplicate&quot; posts are marked as  so here is a new bug report: On the , I am listed twice:  While that's fun and all, it isn't exactly right. Why does a free-falling body experience no force despite accelerating? Not sure how to make tables, but:  For a binary operation $*$, and set $\{e,a,b,c\}$, in the Cayley table, $a*a$ can be filled with either the identity or an element different from both $e$ and $a$. If in the table the place for $a*a$ is filled with $e$, then the rest of the table can be filled out in two different ways.  What are the two different ways?  Thanks JavaScript closure inside loops – simple practical example I read a novel when I was 12 or 13 (late 80's, early 90's) about two timelines combining on Earth.  It was a full length novel for adults that I swiped from my mom (she doesn't remember it at all.)  I've been trying to figure out what the title is for some time but my google-fu is unable to find the right search terms.    The book was published in the 80's or perhaps early 90's.  The story: It was set on Earth and featured two timelines running concurrently (in the 80's?)  Timeline 1:  The nuclear missile crisis had gone badly and a low level nuclear war had more or less destroyed the US, but small towns still survived but are slowly fading away.  Much of the story was about the scarcity of goods, and the protagonist in the main thread of the book started the story by finding a 6 pack of Coke buried in a ruined house.  Throughout the story people were finding things that had grown scarce (deer, bullets, human beings.)  One strange scene I recall involved mutant/radioactive sweet potatoes that had driven a man insane.  Eventually people in this timeline began having dreams of their lives in Timeline 2.  Some of the people were not having dreams, and it was eventually discovered that they had died in Timeline 2.    Timeline 2:  There is panic in a world recognizable as our 1980's as nuclear war draws near.  Since more and stronger missiles have been developed, the end of humanity is at hand.  Things start disappearing from that world as the war begins.  Timeline 2 was mostly seen as vignettes of panicked people running around.  Combination of Timelines: In a weird, incongruous, almost surely poorly written scene, Gaia (yes, Earth itself) is seen to be combining a dying timeline with a doomed timeline in order to save humanity.  At the end of the novel, kids from Timeline 2 are transported into Timeline 1 in order to repopulate.  The new kids drink all the Coke, in case you were wondering...  Any help finding the title would be welcome.  I recall enjoying the book a lot when I was a kid, but I suspect my mom traded it in at our local used book store because at some point it just disappeared.