Where did the "unavailable" meaning of "Out of Pocket" come from? The phrase "out of pocket" is often used in my office to mean "unavailable".  I've found  to this on the internet as well, but no obvious clue to where this meaning comes from.    Where does this particular meaning come from?
"Out of pocket"? I'm increasingly hearing the phrase "out of pocket" used in America as a colloquialism to mean "away from the office", "unavailable", or "incommunicado".     I apologize for not replying sooner; I have been out of pocket.    What is the etymology of this usage? It always sounds odd to me, since I had previously always associated the phrase with expenses, e.g., "I had to pay for the service out of pocket," meaning, "I had to pay for the service using my own money." Should either of these usages be avoided? What is the extent of their acceptance?
I am designing a poster, which has some geometrical shapes (TikZ paths) surrounded by some text. I would like the text to flow neatly around these shapes. I bet there's some clever TikZ magic that could do this.  EDIT: This is the sort of effect I want, sorry to not be clear:    \documentclass[a4paper]{article} \usepackage{tikz} \begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture} \draw (0,0) to (2,-2) to (2,-4) to (4,-4) to [out=up, in=down] (6.5,0); \node [text width=6cm, anchor=north west] at (0,0) { \hspace{5pt}  This is the sort of effect I want to \\ \hspace{23pt} achieve, with text automatically \\ \hspace{36pt} constrained by some \\ \hspace{46pt} geometrical form. Here \\ \hspace{55pt} it's just a curve, \\ \hspace{57pt} but this could \\ \hspace{57pt} also be the \\ \hspace{57pt} text label \\ \hspace{57pt} of a node.}; \end{tikzpicture} \end{document} Inspired by a StackOverflow question ().  Is there a DBMS that actually supports the = NULL syntax? Dual boot with windows 7! I'm using windows 7 right now. I want to install Ubuntu with dual boot. Is is safe? And does the process go safely? Let $f$ be increasing on $[a,b]$ and $a < x_1 < \dotsb < x_n < b$. Show that $\sum_{k = 1}^n [f(x_k^+) - f(x_k^-)]\leq f(b^-) - f(a^+)$. Adding a link with a space in front causes the link to not work When you paste a link into the "Insert Hyperlink" box, it adds it automatically as a citation link:  [Example 1][1]    [1]: http://example.com   But when you paste a link starting with a space , it tries to URL encode it, to change the space to %20, and then sticks a http:// on the front to make it a valid link:  [Example 2][2]    [2]: http://%20http://example.com   This, however, means the link doesn't work.    Please could leading whitespace be stripped from the URL? Which render engine renders faster? Blender Internal or Cycles? I wonder which render engine is faster? I mean, you have 2 identical scenes and render it using BI and Cycles. Which image will be generated faster? What will be the time difference?  Do you know any site (please post a link) which shows the results of such comparison? showing that a group of order 45 is abelian I'm trying to understand the following proof from Dummit &amp; Foote (pg. 137) which shows why a group of order 45 is abelian. I understand everything but the last two sentences. Why is it that $|G/C_G(P)|=1$? Also, is it always true that $G/Z(G)$ is abelian? Thank you! How are first digits of $\pi$ found? Since Pi or $\pi$ is an irrational number, its digits do not repeat. And there is no way to actually find out the digits of $\pi$ ($\frac{22}{7}$ is just a rough estimate but it's not accurate). I am talking about accurate digits by either multiplication or division or any other operation on numbers.  Then how are the first digits of $\pi$ found -     3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993...   In fact, more than 100,000 digits of $\pi$ are found (sources - )  How is that possible? If these digits of $\pi$ are found, then it must be possible to compute $\pi$ with some operations. (I am aware of breaking of circle into infinite pieces method but that doesn't give accurate results.)  How are these digits of $\pi$ found accurately? Can it be possible for a square root of some number to be equal to $\pi$? How to connect nodes to node group inputs and outputs in python? How can I install a Canon printer or scanner driver? How many connected components does $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R)$ have? I've noticed that $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R)$ is not a connected space, because if it were $\det(\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R))$ (where $\det$ is the function ascribing to each $n\times n$ matrix its determinant) would be a connected space too, since $\det$ is a continuous function. But $\det(\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R))=\mathbb R\setminus\{0\},$ so not connected.  I started thinking if I could prove that $\det^{-1}((-\infty,0))$ and $\det^{-1}((0,\infty))$ are connected. But I don't know how to prove that. I'm reading my notes from the topology course I took last year and I see nothing about proving connectedness... Ambiguity of "quite" The adverb "quite" has the following meanings :     1: wholly, completely ("not quite   finished")      2: to an extreme : positively "quite   sure" —often used as an intensifier   with a "quite a swell guy" "quite a   beauty"      3: to a considerable extent : rather   ("quite near")   My understanding is that #1 and #2 conflict with #3. For example, when you say "She's quite right", do you mean "She's completely right" or "To a considerable extent, she's right"? Notice that in the latter case you're not saying that she is completely right.  Another example is "I'm quite sure". Does it necessarily mean "I'm completely sure"?   Does the word really have conflicting meanings that can possibly cause ambiguity? Or am I missing something? I try to solve this problem. I seems to come close to the end but I can't get the conclusion. Can someone help me complete my proof. Thanks          Show that the polynomial $h(x) = (x-1)(x-2)\cdots(x-n) + 1$ is irreducible over $\mathbb Z$ for all $n\ge1$ and $ n\ne4$.      Suppose $h(x) = f(x) g(x)$, then we must have $f(i)g(i) = 1$ for all $i = 1,2,...n$. So both $f(i)$ and $g(i)$ are $1$ or $-1$. In either case, $m(x) = f(x) - g(x)$ has degree smaller than $n$ and have $n$ different roots ($1,2,...,n$). So we must have $m(x) = 0$. Then $h(x) = f(x)^{2}$. So $n$ must be even. Let $n = 2k$. Because $f(x)$ has degree $k$, there are $k$ values from $\{1,2,...,2k\}$ at which $f(x)$ is $1$ and $k$ values at which $f(x)$ is $-1$.  This is where I got stuck. Hope some one can help me solve this. Thanks. How to get the last argument to a /bin/sh function What's a better way to implement print_last_arg?  #!/bin/sh  print_last_arg () {     eval "echo \${$#}"  # this hurts }  print_last_arg foo bar baz # baz   (If this were, say, #!/usr/bin/zsh instead of #!/bin/sh I'd know what to do.  My problem is finding a reasonable way to implement this for #!/bin/sh.)  EDIT: The above is only a silly example.  My goal is not to print the last argument, but rather to have a way to refer to the last argument within a shell function.    EDIT2: I apologize for such an unclearly worded question.  I hope to get it right this time.  If this were /bin/zsh instead of /bin/sh, I could write something like this  #!/bin/zsh  print_last_arg () {     local last_arg=$argv[$#]     echo $last_arg }   The expression $argv[$#] is an example of what I described in my first EDIT as a way to refer to the last argument within a shell function.  Therefore, I really should have written my original example like this:  print_last_arg () {     local last_arg=$(eval "echo \${$#}")   # but this hurts even more     echo $last_arg }   ...to make it clear that what I'm after is a less awful thing to put to the right of the assignment.  Note, however, that in all the examples, the last argument is accessed non-destructively.  IOW, the accessing of the last argument leaves the positional arguments as a whole unaffected. Unexpected output of xargs Is there a way to change the process group of a running process? Is there a way to change PID, PPID, SID of a running process? It would make sense for the answer to be no, but I'd like to make sure. Best Pattern For Adding Commentary in align Environment? I've been using the align environment to line up equations in proofs/explanations/etc and I like to place parenthetical commentary for each step, similar to the code below:  \documentclass{article} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document}  \begin{align*}   f(ax + by) &amp; = f(ax) + f(by) &amp; (By Property 1) \\              &amp; = af(x) + bf(y) &amp; (By Property 2) \\ \end{align*}  \end{document}   The problem I have with this is that the commentary completely distorts the overall alignment of the equation area; far too much space is allocated to the column containing the commentary.  I would like, insofar as it is possible, for the equations themselves to be aligned in the center of the page and for the commentary to simply appear on the right without affecting the overall justification of the equations. What's the best way to achieve this? How can I get a history of running processes I often use  to keep my sentences gender neutral. Many of my friends (none of them are native speakers), however, consider this to be grammatically incorrect, and suggest me not to use it in formal English exams.  My questions are:   Is singular they widely accepted in English speaking countries such as America and Britain? Is it formal enough to be used in formal situations, such as a public speech? Is it casual enough to be used in informal situations, such as gossiping among friends? Add "paragraphs" to Markdown help Like balpha once , a &lt;br&gt; line break (newline) should be used in very few cases, and surely is not the same as a new &lt;p&gt; paragraph. Still  only explains line breaks, not paragraphs:      Some sites  an additional &quot;New paragraphs only occur when there is a blank line. A single carriage does not create a new paragraph.&quot;, but I feel that's not very clear*, and the emphasis is still on line breaks while it should be on paragraphs:      So: As a minimum, please add (rephrase) a note about the blank line, and maybe use &quot;Only when really needed [...] force&quot;:  Paragraphs and line breaks Simply use a blank line between two paragraphs to start a new &lt;p&gt; paragraph. Only when really needed, end a line with two spaces to force a &lt;br/&gt; line break: How do I love thee?__     Let me count the ways   I'd even prefer an explicit example, simply as I think &lt;p&gt; should be favoured over &lt;br&gt; in most situations:  Paragraphs and line breaks Simply use a blank line to start a new &lt;p&gt; paragraph: First sentence in the first paragraph. Another sentence. And a third. Maybe making this multiple consecutive lines of text, but still one paragraph.  The second paragraph.  Only when really needed, end a line with two spaces to force a &lt;br/&gt; line break: How do I love thee?__     Let me count the ways   Alternatively, slightly change the existing &quot;Linebreaks&quot;† part, and above that add a standalone section, :  Paragraphs A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated by one or more blank lines: A blank line is any line that looks like a blank line. A line containing nothing but spaces or tabs is considered blank.  Normal paragraphs should not be indented with spaces or tabs.  Line breaks Only when really needed, end a line with two spaces to force a &lt;br/&gt; line break: How do I love thee?__     Let me count the ways   And: maybe even add a section &quot;Paragraphs&quot; to the inline post help on top of the editor? I'm not sure which help tab should then be shown  though.  * Also note how not all sites highlight the two spaces with a different background color. † Yes, I think &quot;line break&quot; likes a space too...