So apparently my understanding of this concept is either old, outdated, or nonstandard, etc, but I was under the assumption that in an integral, $dx$ represented the "infinitesimal change in $x$", analogous to $\Delta x$, the "width" of an approximating rectangle under the curve, where $f(x)$ is the height of that rectangle.  But now I hear it's just syntax to let you know the variable you're integrating. But if this is true then why, during things like $u$-substitution, do we still manipulate $dx$ as if it were a real quantity and we're just changing the units? It's like as if we were doing dimensional analysis for example.  So what exactly is $dx$ if it's not a real thing but is still something we apparently manipulate in certain situations such as $u$-substitution? And moreover if $dx$ is just syntax when what exactly is the integral doing if not implicitly taking the sum of infinitely many "rectangles" with infinitely small width?
When I was at school and learning integration in maths class at A Level my teacher wrote things like this on the board.  $$\int f(x)\, dx$$  When he came to explain the meaning of the $dx$, he told us "think of it as a full stop".  For whatever reason I did not raise my hand and question him about it.  But I have always shaken my head at such a poor explanation for putting a $dx$ at the end of integration equations such as these.  To this day I do not know the purpose of the $dx$.  Can someone explain this to me without resorting to grammatical metaphors?
What do you feel when crossing the event horizon? Servlet returns "HTTP Status 404 The requested resource (/servlet) is not available" How to print colored text to the terminal? How can I output colored text to the terminal in Python? What's wrong with this demonstration?:  $$A \iff 1 = 1^1$$ $$A \implies 1 = 1^\frac{2}{2}$$ $$A \implies 1 = (1^2)^\frac{1}{2}$$ $$A \implies 1 = ((-1)^2)^\frac{1}{2}$$ $$A \implies 1 = (-1)^\frac{2}{2}$$ $$A \implies 1 = (-1)^1 = -1$$  So finaly we get  $$1 = -1$$ Can I set max_retries for requests.request? Advice/literature on combining items with different response scales into composite scales? Let's say I have some self-report items measured on a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) and other items measured on a 4-point Likert scale (Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often). Can anyone point me to literature (or practical advice) on combining these items into a composite scale? Let's assume for the sake of argument that we have some empirical evidence that items should be combined.  Some ideas:  1. Sum raw scores  Pro: Easy  Con: Max responses on the 5-point scale (originally 4's) drive up the total scale score more than max responses on the 4-point scale (originally 3's).  2. Rescale and sum  Put all of the items on a 0-1 scale and sum. So the 4-point items (0,1,2,3) would be multiplied by (4/3)/4 and the 5-point items (0,1,2,3,4) would be multiplied by 1/4, resulting in possible values of (0,.33,.66,1) and (0,.25,.50,.75,1), respectively. This way max responses on the 5-point scale (originally 4's) would not drive up the total scale score more than max responses on the 4-point scale (originally 3's).   Pro: Items would have equal weighting. (could be a con, depending on your perspective).  Con: Ignores differences in variability between items on different metrics?   3. Standardize and sum  A related approach would be to standardize all of the items (z score) and then sum.  Pro: Addresses differences in variability between items on different metrics  Con: Total scale score becomes less interpretable and sample-specific. The latter makes it hard to benchmark as a measure to be used in other settings/other samples.  4. PCA or other data reduction   4a. EFA to get factor loadings. Multiply scaled items by factor loadings.  4b. PCA to get score of first principal component.  Pro: Items weighted by influence.  Con: Same as #2. EFA-derived scores could vary a lot depending on rotation/extraction choices. Some would not advise on ordinal data.    Overall: I like #2 because it seems easier to compare results across different samples. Thoughts? Alternative ideas or concerns about the ideas presented? What is the probability that all three tosses result in the same outcome? A coin is tossed three times: The probability of zero heads is 1/8 and the probability of zero tails is 1/8.  And my question is: What is the probability that all three tosses result in the same outcome?   So, if P(zero heads)= 1/8 , then that should be the same of p(all tails)?  If so, we could use the Addition Rule which is $P(A \cup B) = P(A) + P(B)$  where A and B are disjoint events, i.e. $A \cap B = \emptyset$, A is the event of tossing all heads and B is the event of tossing all tails.  I'm not sure how to continue after that... would the complement be used? Simple way to transpose columns and rows in SQL? Adventurer enters an other-dimensional realm where he repeatedly dies unexpectedly and wakes up in reality Why are springs shaped the way they are? Why are springs coiled the way they are? Why not some other shape? Is the shape due to its elasticity or something? How does Cantor's diagonal argument work? I'm having trouble understanding Cantor's diagonal argument.  Specifically, I do not understand how it proves that something is "uncountable".  My understanding of the argument is that it takes the following form (modified slightly from the  article, assuming base 2, where the numbers must be from the set $ \lbrace 0,1 \rbrace $):  \begin{align} s_1 &amp;= (\mathbf{0},1,0,\dots)\\ s_2 &amp;= (1,\mathbf{1},0,\dots)\\ s_3 &amp;= (0,0,\mathbf{1},\dots)\\ \vdots &amp;= (s_n \text{ continues}) \end{align}  In this case, the diagonal number is the bold diagonal numbers $(0, 1, 1)$, which when "flipped" is $(1,0,0)$, neither of which is $s_1$, $s_2$, or $s_3$.  My question, or misunderstanding, is: When there exists the possibility that more $s_n$ exist, as is the case in the example above, how does this "prove" anything?  For example:  \begin{align} s_0 &amp;= (1,0,0,\mathbf{0},\dots)\ \ \textrm{ (...the wikipedia flipped diagonal)}\\ s_1 &amp;= (\mathbf{0},1,0,\dots)\\ s_2 &amp;= (1,\mathbf{1},0,\dots)\\ s_3 &amp;= (0,0,\mathbf{1},\dots)\\ s_4 &amp;= (0,1,1,\mathbf{1},\dots)\\ s_4 &amp;= (1,0,0,\mathbf{1},\dots)\ \ \textrm{ (...alternate, flipped } s_4\textrm{)}\\ s_5 &amp;= (1,0,0,0,\dots)\\ s_6 &amp;= (1,0,0,1,\dots)\\ \vdots &amp;= (s_n \text{ continues}) \end{align}  In other words, as long as there is a $\dots \text{ continues}$ at the end, the very next number could be the "impossible diagonal number", with the caveat that it's not strictly identical to the "impossible diagonal number" as the wikipedia article defines it:     For each $m$ and $n$ let $s_{n,m}$ be the $m^{th}$ element of the $n^{th}$ sequence on the list; so for each $n$,      $$s_n = (s_{n,1}, s_{n,2}, s_{n,3}, s_{n,4}, \dots).$$      ...snip...      Otherwise, it would be possible by the above process to construct a sequence $s_0$ which would both be in $T$ (because it is a sequence of 0s and 1s which is by the definition of $T$ in $T$) and at the same time not in $T$ (because we can deliberately construct it not to be in the list). $T$, containing all such sequences, must contain $s_0$, which is just such a sequence. But since $s_0$ does not appear anywhere on the list, $T$ cannot contain $s_0$.      Therefore $T$ cannot be placed in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers. In other words, it is uncountable.   I'm not sure this definition is correct, because if we assume that $m = (1, \dots)$, then this definition says that "$s_n$ is equal to itself"&mdadsh;there is no "diagonalization" in this particular description of the argument, nor does it incorporate the "flipping" part of the argument, never mind the fact that we have very clearly constructed just such an impossible $T$ list above.  An attempt to correct the "diagonalization" and "flipping" problem:  $$s_n = (\lnot s_{m,m}, \lnot s_{m,m}, \dots) \quad \text{where $m$ is the element index and} \quad\begin{equation}\lnot s_{m,m} = \begin{cases}0 &amp; \mathrm{if\ } s_{m,m} = 1\\1 &amp; \mathrm{if\ } s_{m,m} = 0\end{cases}\end{equation}$$  This definition doesn't quite work either, as we immediately run in to problems with just $s_1 = (0),$ which is impossible because by definition $s_1$ must be $ = (1)$ if $s_1 = (0)$, which would also be impossible because...   Or more generally, with the revised definition there is a contradiction whenever $n = m$, which would seem to invalidate the revised formulation of the argument / proof.  Nothing about this argument / proof makes any sense to me, nor why it only applies to real numbers and makes them "uncountable". As near as I can tell it would seem to apply equal well to natural numbers, which are "countable".  What am I missing? I'm new to both JavaScript and . In YUI library examples, you can find many uses of this construct:  (function() {     var Dom = YAHOO.util.Dom,     Event = YAHOO.util.Event,     layout = null,         ... })();   I think the last couple of parentheses are to execute the function just after the declaration.  ... But what about the previous set of parentheses surrounding the function declaration?  I think it is a matter of scope; that's to hide inside variables to outside functions and possibly global objects. Is it? More generally, what are the mechanics of those parentheses? What's the difference between \usepackage{ngerman} and \usepackage[ngerman]{babel} How can I find the source of a mysterious bad smell? We have recently moved home, and all is fine appart from a mystery smell which I'm unable to track down. It's driving me crazy (actually, my wife thinks I am crazy as she can't smell it).  I'm hoping someone on here could offer some tips on how to track it down, or what it might be.  Here's some info:  Background: The house is a two floor (plus basement) block/concrete construction.  There is a wide hallway on the groundfloor connecting the rooms (including kitchen, toilet/shower room, stairwell).  The stairs are wood-board on concrete.  The floor in the hall and kitchen  is tiles over concrete, the rest woodblock/parquet over concrete.  Location of the smell: I usually smell it when coming down the stairs, seems to be strongest about half way down.  However sometimes it doesn't smell on the stairs at all, but rather in the ground floor hallway.  Seems to move around quite a lot. Occasionally I have felt it upstairs, but assume this is it drifting. The basement smells fine.  The Smell: The best description of the smell I can give is something like old rubbish.  What I've investigated so far:  1) Something died somewhere?  This was my initial thought, and since I usually notice the smell on the stairs I thought I'd try there first.  I've taken up some of the wood on the stairs (not all yet) but not looking promising, as there really isn't much space between the wood boards and the concrete.  Not really sure where else something could have gotten, as everything seems to be tight against the concrete.  2) Smell from kitchen moving into rest of house? I never really detected a bad smell in the kitchen, but thought I'd rule it out anyway. I thought maybe it was the bin under the kitchen sink that might be causing it.  So I moved the bin to a small storage room at the back of the kitchen (and kept the door closed) and thoroughly cleaned inside the cupboard under the sink. No change.  I also looked behind all of the cabinets for a problem, but could not see anything.  3) Gas from drains? The sink doesn't smell in the kitchen, and it's got a P-bend trap on the pipe - so I can't see a problem there.  Cant detect a smell from the plugholes in the bathroom either.  The bathroom sink waste pipe has a bottle-trap on it.   Don't know if there is a trap on the shower as it's a sealed unit, but I'm guessing yes (and can't smell anything).  Can any one think of something I might have missed, or give any advice? On exactly what criteria is the Electorate badge awarded? There is a badge named Electorate which is going to be awarded on "Voted on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions". Can somebody explain this to me?  Voted on 600 Question and 25% are on Question? is this  means   Voted on 600 Posts and 25% are on Question  Can't SO place some easy text or Definitions for average users? "Shall" versus "will" for the first person When I studied English, I was taught that shall is used to express the future tense for the first person (singular, or plural), and will is used for the same purpose in the other cases.  When I look for shall on the NOAD, I read the following sentence, in a note about the usage of shall:     In practice, however, shall and will are today used more or less interchangeably in statements (although not in questions).   Does that mean shall and will are used with almost the same meaning?  Does I shall return have the same meaning of I will return? Do resistances stack? If a creature had resistance to spells, and then cast fire resistance on it, would it take only 1/4 damage from all fire spells? Can't access my home directory "Encrypted private directory is not setup properly" Hi I'm trying to access my home directory on my laptop hard drive through a live usb. I cannot boot into the OS on the hard drive and the home and root directory is encrypted. I have the encryption key but when I try to run the tool to gain access it pops up for a second then disappears and when I run the command in Terminal it says "Encrypted private directory is not setup properly". What are my options on getting into the directory? I really need to get the data off my laptop. I tried to change network interfaces name on this new Ubuntu 16.04 LTS version but doesn't have the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules.  So, I tried to use /lib/udev/write_net_rules but it not exist.  Why do I need this modification? Because I'm using a tool to Simulate virtual platforms that use flex licensing and the authentication need to be in eth0 interface name.  Any suggestion?  The command ip link returns:  user@laptop:~$ ip link  1: lo: &lt;LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP&gt; mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1 link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00 2: enp6s0: &lt;NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP&gt; mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000 link/ether b8:2a:xx:yy:xx:yy brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 3: wlp7s0: &lt;BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP&gt; mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000 link/ether 5c:e0:xx:yy:xx:yy brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  user@laptop:~$ ifconfig  enp6s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:2a:xx:yy:xx:yy   lo        Link encap:Local Loopback   wlp7s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5c:e0:xx:yy:xx:yy     (Some information were ignored and suppressed)  I already tried some links: How do you determine the winner of a hand? In Texas Hold'em poker, there are some cases where a particular card, often called kicker, acts as a tiebreaker between players to determine who wins the pot, or if the pot has to be shared.  For some combinations such as three or four of a kind, there is no doubt: the kicker is the 5th card of the chosen combination, and determines the winner.  Example     Alice has 7 and 10   Bob has 7 and K   On the board are 7, 7, 2, 3, 4   In that case, both have a three of a kind. But because Bob has a king and Alice only a 10, he wins.  Most of poker websites explaining the rules clearly mention the role of the kicker applying to three of a kind and double pairs. But much fewer say something about colors, straights and full houses, and I found many contradicting answers. I also asked the question to some used online poker players and they also gave me contradicting answers.  I have tried to search for official tournament rules, but most of them only explain what happens with bad behaviors, bad deals, incorrect or confusing betting, showing cards when you shouldn't, acting when it's not your turn, etc. without mentioning subtleties about combinations at all.  To simplify my question, I will take three examples; I think it's better to start with examples before getting to the general answer if one exists. So, what's happening in the following 3 examples? Could you give a more generalized answer?  Example 1 - Flushes     Alice has 2&clubs; and 3&clubs;   Bob has 4&clubs; and 5&clubs;   On the board are 6&clubs;, 8&clubs;, 10&clubs;, 2&hearts;, 5&diams;   Contradicting answer 1: it's a tie, because the highest card included in the flush is the 10, which everybody chooses to include in their 5 showdown cards. Contradicting answer 2: Bob wins, because he has the greatest private card that is part of the flush  Example 2 - Straight     Alice has 6 and K   Bob has 6 and J   On the board are 4, 5, 7, 8, 10   Contradicting answer 1: it's a tie, because the greatest card in the straight is the 8 for both Alice and Bob Contradicting answer 2: Alice wins, because she owns an extra king, compared to the jack of Bob  Example 3 - Full house     Alice has 3 and 7   Bob has 3 and 6   On the board are 3, 3, 2, 2, 5   Contradicting answer 1: it's a tie, because one is supposed to choose only five cards to make a combination, and a full house is already five cards. There couldn't be any kicker, and thus their showdowns are strictly equals. Contradicting answer 2: Alice wins because of her extra 7, compared to the 6 of Bob  Thank you very much for your answers.  Note: I'm unable to post next to you, so I edit my own post; strange not be able to answer to an answer.  Ok, So if I summarize what you are saying :   In the flush case, Bob wins because at some point, their hand differs. Technically, I can continue comparing the highest private card to decide who wins. I had it correct. In the straight case, if the highest card of the straight is public, then it's technically always a tie, no matter what the players had as second private card (asuming that only one of the two cards was part of the straight). In a full house if both players have the same triplet and the same pair, it's always a tie, no matter what the players had as second private card (assuming again that only one of the two was part of the full house).   Please confirm me that what I summarized is correct.  Thank you for your answer.