No of files and directories in a particular directory in shell script
Counting files in leaves of directory tree
Trying to identify pre-1970s short story involving multiple humans absorbed into an alien blob I think this story dates from the 1950s, plus or minus a decade - I read it about 30-35 years ago in a (then) fairly old story collection. It involves explorers on a planet falling into a gelatinous object that dissolves most of their bodies except for their brains and nervous systems. About four of them fall in to the same creature, and they discover that by thinking about it they can grow limbs and other body parts. At first they try to fight each other, by growing arms so they can hit each other's brains - and one of them realises that growing a skull would be a good idea - but later they agree to grow legs and move the creature around co-operatively. I would love to identify this story. What's the best solution to check a users country? Why do mathematicians use single-letter variables? When certain nationalities of people want to travel in the Schengen zone, they are required to apply for a Schengen visa. This is a straight-forward process for most, but when an applicant has had problems with removals or refusals they may be reluctant to apply because they want to avoid the complexities of serial visa refusals. This reluctance may lead some into wondering how their history can be expunged, and this line of thought inevitably leads to the idea of getting their passport replaced with a new one.  This sounds like a great formula for people who have had prior refusals or removals.  In essence they can become 'reincarnated' as a first-time traveller and hence avoid the unpleasantness of revealing their prior interactions with the Schengen authorities.  The relevant parts of the application form are shown here...    Nothing asks about a prior removal or refusal, and the applicant is left with simple denials for 3 questions in order to present themselves as a first-time traveller.  Assuming the person is happy to set aside the moral issues associated with denying their history, are there any holes to this strategy?  This question is scoped to Schengen visa applications so that it will not be unmanageably broad, but answers from other regimes (particularly the affluent Commonwealth and the USA) are acceptable as long as the main points are relatively consistent with Schengen. Check if url has domain name and not an ip What gifts would be welcome for a Swedish host family? I am trying to use a file repository for updating linux/ubuntu on a non-connected machine. The architecture for this machine (uname -a):  x86_64 GNU/Linux   The results of dpkg --printarchitecture are:  amd64   It is a Trusty Tahr amd64 machine, and it specifically says this, for example, in the aptitude sources.list file. Also, the "About this Computer" in ubuntu specifically says the machine is 64-bit. So, I installed the amd64 packages on the machine. However, when I try to do apt-get update, I get errors such as:  W: Failed to fetch file:/var/spool/apt-mirror-trusty/mirror/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/main/binary-i386/Packages  File not found   So, in other words, even though it is a 64-bit machine, apt is inexplicably trying to read i386 packages. Why is it doing this and how can I make it use the 64-bit packages?  Note that there is nothing in sources.list that specifies i386.  The only uncommented line in the sources.list file is:  deb file:///var/spool/apt-mirror-trusty/mirror/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse For some reason I can't unhide my objects anymore in this file. Is it a bug? I've noticed a distressing tendency for questions that seem basic or overly short to be immediately closed and downvoted into oblivion.  Case in point:   Within a minute of being asked, this question received 12 downvotes and was closed as "not a real question".  That particular question is a very real, non-trivial question, but it had somewhat poor grammar and looked a little like a much simpler question.  Can we try to be a little more accepting? What are the best ways to improve a site's position in Google? What are the best ways to improve a site's position in the Google search results? Calculus book recommendations (for complete beginner) Well I have not started calculus yet but I am really keen to. I would love if you suggest some books.  Points to be noted:   I really don't like the way textbooks are written so please no "textbooks"  I am COMPLETELY beginner in calculus. I know a little bit of trigonometry and what functions are but not really in depth.The book should start from the base, I mean really from the base. I may require a precalculus book too if the books don't cover that. I would really love if the book shows how calculus was developed, why it was developed and things like that.   Well,thanks in advance! Hair particles render not same as 3dView(Eevee) Obfuscation is one way, but it can't protect from breaking the piracy protection security of the application. How do I make sure that the application is not tampered with, and how do I make sure that the registration mechanism can't be reverse engineered?  Also it is possible to convert a C# application to native code, and  is too costly.  C# provides lot of features, and is the ideal language for my code, so writing the whole codebase again in C++ is out of the question.  Secure certificates can be easily removed from the signed assemblies in .NET. POSTFIX main.cf permission denied Upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan, but not Sierra We have an older iMac (Model A1311, Mid 2011). It has been running Yosemite. We have run into some of the WIFI issues associated with Yosemite.   Is it possible to upgrade to El Capitan but not Sierra?   El Cap has been out longer. Its my wife's computer, its older, and I really don't want to be debugging Sierra until a few  more "dot" releases come out. How prove that $\lim\limits_{x\to+\infty}f(x)=\lim\limits_{x\to+\infty}f'(x)=0$ if $\lim\limits_{x\to+\infty}([f'(x)]^2+f^3(x))=0$? Question:     Let $f$ be differentiable on $[0,+\infty)$, such as$$\lim_{x\to+\infty}\left([f'(x)]^2+f^3(x)\right)=0$$show that $$\lim_{x\to\infty}f(x)=\lim_{x\to\infty}f'(x)=0$$   I think this problem is similar to  and (the  background)  For my problem I guess that if  $$\lim_{x\to+\infty}\left([f'(x)]^{2m}+f^{2n+1}(x)\right)=0,m,n\in N^{+},n,m&gt;1$$ then we have $\lim_{x\to\infty}f(x)=\lim_{x\to\infty}f'(x)=0$. biblatex: Cite commands with the same author prints authors name twice I'm using biblatex 1.4b, and Biber 0.9. However, I think the problem is with my settings, not with the versions of those programs.  I'm trying to cite a single author, and produce their name, followed by the dates of two papers, using the authoryear-ibid style, and natbib compatability. Here's my biblatex preamble:  \usepackage[style=authoryear-ibid,natbib=true,backend=biber]{biblatex}   What I want is for the following command: The works by \citet{Blau81, Blau88} ... to produce: The works by Blau (1981; 1988) ... however, what I'm getting is: The works by Blau (1981); Blau (1988)...  I know that biblatex knows they're the same author, since in the bibliography they fall under the same name (i.e. after the first instance of the name, there's just a dash instead of the name)  What am I doing wrong here? I've also tried it with the commands \cite and \cites, and neither produces what I want.   (crossposted with comp.text.tex) How can I get the current working directory? I want to have a script that takes the current working directory to a variable. The section that needs the directory is like this dir = pwd. It just prints pwd how do I get the current working directory into a variable? How can I visualize or simulate the effect of different focal lengths? I have seen many camera review sites illustrate the effect of using different focal lengths on the same photograph using frames. There are also similar illustrations to compare different sensors (). I find this kind of visualization to be very useful in comparing the actual effect of the longer focal length\different sensor size. Of course the ability to do a wider focal length visualization would also be equally useful, but that's not possible.  Is there any ready-made software or plugin that enables this? If not, is there any simple technique to visualize the effect of longer focal lengths on an image (one would of course have to use the zoom information in the image EXIF data to accurately represent this)? All I can think of is to use some trigonometry to do the necessary calculations for the frame sizes for cropping. Is energy content of a system different depending on the observer? For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine that the entire universe is empty except for a single lump of (classical) matter with mass $m$. In its center of momentum frame, it is clear that the total energy is simply $E_\text{CoM}=mc^2$. However, in a frame moving relative to it with speed $v$, we have $E_\text{moving}=\sqrt{m^2c^4+p^2c^2}&gt; mc^2$ for all nonzero $v$.  Are we to infer that the energy content of a system can be different relative to the observer? Does this not violate the first law of thermodynamics?