Story Identification - Trilogy about VR and an old man who eats soap
Story with VR worlds for the wealthy
We're working on a Log Viewer. The use will have the option to filter by user, severity, etc. In the Sql days I'd add to the query string, but I want to do it with Linq. How can I conditionally add where-clauses? What is the best way to open a file for exclusive access in Python? What is the most elegant way to solve this:   open a file for reading, but only if it is not already opened for writing open a file for writing, but only if it is not already opened for reading or writing   The built-in functions work like this  &gt;&gt;&gt; path = r"c:\scr.txt" &gt;&gt;&gt; file1 = open(path, "w") &gt;&gt;&gt; print file1 &lt;open file 'c:\scr.txt', mode 'w' at 0x019F88D8&gt; &gt;&gt;&gt; file2 = open(path, "w") &gt;&gt;&gt; print file2 &lt;open file 'c:\scr.txt', mode 'w' at 0x02332188&gt; &gt;&gt;&gt; file1.write("111") &gt;&gt;&gt; file2.write("222") &gt;&gt;&gt; file1.close()   scr.txt now contains '111'.  &gt;&gt;&gt; file2.close()   scr.txt was overwritten and now contains '222' (on Windows, Python 2.4).  The solution should work inside the same process (like in the example above) as well as when another process has opened the file. It is preferred, if a crashing program will not keep the lock open. Prove the Radical of an Ideal is an Ideal I am given that $R$ is a commutative ring, $A$ is an ideal of $R$, and $N(A)=\{x\in R\,|\,x^n\in A$ for some $n\}$.  I am studying with a group for our comprehensive exam and this problem has us stuck for two reasons.  FIRST - We decided to assume $n\in\mathbb{Z}^+$ even though this restriction was not given. We decided $n\ne 0$ because then $x^0=1$ and we are not guaranteed unity. We also decided $n\notin\mathbb{Z}^-$ because $x^{-1}$ has no meaning if there are no multiplicative inverses. Is this a valid argument?  SECOND - We want to assume $x,\,y\in N(A)$ which means $x^m,\,y^n\in A$ and use the binomial theorem to expand $(x-y)^n$ which we have already proved is valid in a commutative ring and show that each term is in A so $x-y$ is in $N(A)$. The biggest problem is how to approach the $-y$ if we are not guaranteed unity. Does anyone have any suggestions?  Thank you in advance for any insight. Optional argument after splat argument With powershell get exactly the same application list as in Add/Remove programms What is the best word describing the nature of expiring in a short amount of time, connoting "losing public attention"? Is there an adjective that describes the nature of expiring, connoting a sense of losing public attention, in a very short amount of time? For example,  In a fast-paced era, news articles are ____. During the 1990s, compared with traditional technologies, computer  technologies are ___; for example, a new generation of CPU technologies usually comes out every one to two years.  (I thought about &quot;perishable,&quot; but it does not seem connoting &quot;losing public attention.&quot;) Let $n$ be an integer such that if $d | n$ then $d + 1 | n + 1.$ Show that $n$ is a prime number Let $n$ be an integer such that for any integer $d$, if $d | n$ then $d + 1 | n + 1$.   Show that $n$ is a prime number or equal to $1$  My workout...  Suppose $n = xy$ for some postive integers $x$ and $y. x|n$, and hence we assume without loss of generality $x + 1|n + 1.$   Then $x|xy + 1$. However, $xy + x$ is divisible by $x$.  This implies $x − 1$ is divisible by $x$, which is an impossibility if $x$ is not equal to $1$.  Therefore whenever $n$ is decomposed into two factors, one must turn out to be $1$. Hence $n$ must be a prime.  I am looking for any other method which solves this quickly and more quickly... Bibliography in Texmaker How do I correct an HSA distribution when I was refunded by a health provider? Illustrator CS5 brick pattern with perspective I created a curving arrow shape that starts wide at the bottom and thins out near the top where the point is. I also created a brick pattern swatch but when I apply it to the shape it appears like the pattern is overlaid instead of like a real road where the bricks follow the shape and narrows near the most distant point. How can I apply a perspective to the brick pattern without looking like I used a clipping mask?  Here is a link to what I achieved with a clipping mask - not what I want though. I need the bricks to look like they are inlaid just like in real life. In my , I provided the following, problematic,  wording (especially bold italic), and I need help to better understand this issue so I can fix my answer:1          The thing is the books. (Reduced form of Sentence 2.a)         Fundamentally, Sentence 2.a (the so-called "correct" answer), is grammatically defective. Recall there is another grammatical rule: the subject and subject's complement should match in number.    A clarification is needed here. I am not suggesting here, in this EL&amp;U question, that there is any such singular grammatical rule as indicated in the quote above.  The quote continues as follows:     The reduced sentence makes the disagreement between the subject's and complement's plurality obvious. What is one to do? Language is linear and we know "The thing is X" is better than "The thing are X", so we go with the former, which is the subject-verb agreement rule. But what is "the books" then? It must be thought of as a collective noun, even if it doesn't look or feel like one. Forcing something to be a collective noun is related to the idea of notional agreement.   Others noted that grammatically defective is too strongly worded.  There is no such "grammatical rule" for subject/complement agreement.  Please help me understand/improve upon my line of thought here.  I'm stating that Sentence 2.1 presents a fundamental "conflict" or "error" (however one might define error) at some level (morphological, syntax, grammatical, semantic):     The thing is the books.  (Or, "The thing is the objects.")   Based on the "obvious" morphosyntactic plurality conflict, the above sentence feels so wrong that I think many native speakers would think it "simply" grammatically incorrect. However, @F.E. gives counter examples:     And here are some more grammatical examples, where the number of subject and predicative complement don't agree: "They were a problem to us all", "That so-called work of art is simply four pieces of driftwood glued together" (CGEL, page 254-5). As CGEL says: "What is required is semantic compatibility, not syntactic agreement . . .". There are more examples on page 512: "The only thing we need now is some new curtains", "The major asset of the team is its world-class opening bowlers", "Our neighbors are a nuisance", "This gadget is five different tools in one".   I think all the examples given above can be explained as notional agreement.    Question 1: If we explain this phenomena in terms of notional vs syntactic agreement, where does "grammatically correct/incorrect" fit in?  Question 2: Can a simple sentence such as "The thing is the objects." be grammatically incorrect while more complex sentences such as "The thing is four pieces of driftwood glued together." be grammatically correct?  (The answer, in my mind, must be no; this is my conundrum.)  Question 3: Would it be better to say that Sentence 2.a has a low level of (linguistic) ?   Question 4: How about a low level of  and that it's semantically difficult to be (linguistically) ?    Question 5: Do we simply draw a hard line and say "The thing is the objects." is 100% grammatically correct?  I didn't particularly like this option based on intuitive notions of "grammatically correct".    1. Please help me and be kind; I'm trying to improve my understanding. I'm looking for cool, objective advice on how to look at this.  I numbered my questions so they can be easily referenced, if desired.  My preference is the final answer would sufficiently answer all the questions, but of course that can be done explicitly or implicitly. What is the best base to use? What are the practical differences between Bash and Zsh? With the news that , I'm finding lots of results telling me about the switch, and that it may cause problems with shell scripts, but I'm not familiar enough with Zsh to know what those problems might be.  My shell scripts are really not that complicated, but I've only ever used Bash on macOS and Linux - zero experience with Zsh. Can anyone provide a simple practical comparison, or specific stumbling blocks I will need to know, so that I can start working towards being ready for the new shell when Catalina is released? Who were the hooded people in The Rise of Skywalker? Near the end of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker there are several hooded figures that are shown chanting stuff (in Sith?) and just hanging out with Palpatine. Who were these people? In English, especially in a poetic description, ships and cars are  referred to as "she".   Maybe their owners compare their beauty and elegance with those of women, but what if a female owner wanted to describe her yacht or car?   Would she also say, "She is a real beauty", or it might be "he" then?   Does the choice of a pronoun depend on whom she is giving the description of it to — a man or a woman?  What about a man-o’-war or a merchantman? Being ships, are they also referred as "she"?  P.S.  on the use of "she" in reference to ships, but there seems to be no answer to my question there.  P.P.S. My question wasn't pulled out of a thin air. I came across a book by a prominent Russian linguist, G.Veichman, written in 1990, (Novelties in The English Grammar is my translation of the title), where I read that the rule of personification of vehicles may be added regarding a female owner talking about her car using the preposition "he". Period. No further explanation or reference examples. Can we get our personal voting data displayed on the Questions lists? There's been several times where I have been surfing the site, and noticed a question that I am not sure I've checked. Even if I've checked the question before, I can't recall off-hand whether or not I've voted on it or its answer.  Is there a way we can have our personal voting history reflected to some degree or another, in the Questions listing? For example, could there be an indicator as to whether or not we have already voted (up or down) on a question, and perhaps maybe an additional indicator as to whether we've up-voted any of its answers?  It would be very convenient to have some of this data available up-front, without actually having to view the question again. after upgrading to 19.04 the Grub menu have become hidden. It still works and I can boot to both Windows 10 and Ubuntu by blindly finding the entry and pressing enter. I have tried to edit the /etc/default/grub and running sudo update-grub afterward but no change. Here is how it looks now:  # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: #   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'  GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2&gt; /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false  # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"  # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console  # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480  # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true  # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"  # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"   I can't use either Shift or Esc to make it visible too. After pressing either of these, Grub doesn't work anymore and I need to turn my laptop off and on in order to boot.  Edit: Not sure if it helps or not, but I just realized that if I go to the BIOS when I exit BIOS the grub menu shows up with no problem. The next time I boot, the grub menu is invisible again. describes the first-order vs. second-order logic as follows:     First-order logic uses only variables that range over individuals (elements of the domain of discourse); second-order logic has these variables as well as additional variables that range over sets of individuals.   It gives $\forall P\,\forall x (x \in P \lor x \notin P)$ as an SO-logic formula, which makes perfect sense to me.  However, in a , the poster claimed that $\forall x\forall y(x=y\leftrightarrow\forall z(z\in x\leftrightarrow z\in y))$ is an FO formula. I think this must not be the case, since in the above formula, $x$ and $y$ are sets of individuals, while $z$ is an individual (and therefore this must be an SO formula).  I mentioned this as a comment, but two users commented that ZF can be entirely described by FO logic, and therefore $\forall x\forall y(x=y\leftrightarrow\forall z(z\in x\leftrightarrow z\in y))$ is an FO formula.  I'm confused. Could someone explain this please? During the First Wizarding War, why didn't Dumbledore just hunt Voldemort down, as he had done with Grindelwald?  By 'hunting down', I mean finding, defeating and imprisoning him, exactly as in Gridelwald's case, and not, say killing him, something which Dumbledore would not do, as the answers to a previous question (as to him not hunting down Death Eaters) show.  Dumbledore knew that Voldemort had delved into the Dark Arts deeper than anyone else in history and hence "had powers he will never have". But he must have also known well that he could have defeated Voldemort at a direct confrontation, given that he had defeated Grindelwald earlier even against the Elder Wand, and now had that same wand at his disposal. He is seen confident about this throughout the series.  At the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, he did not go beyond outweighing Voldemort and forcing him to flee, probably because, by then, he had reasons to suspect that there was more to Voldemort's survival than his physical body, and thus, destroying that body which had Harry's blood without permanently disposing him off would not have been wise.  But why did he not do that at the First Wizarding War? Is it just that they could not track him down, or did he suspect even then that Voldemort had more sinister things about his soul? is there any canon confirmation of the latter suspicion? I am looking at some code and it has this statement:    ~ConnectionManager() {     Dispose(false); }   The class implements the IDisposable interface, but I do not know if that is part of that the tilde(~) is used for.