Null Pointer Exception on SimpleDateFormat parse
What is a NullPointerException, and how do I fix it?
This is an idea I have seen around, but I have not seen a feature request for it, so here it is.  Downvotes that have no comments are frustrating and difficult to manage.  This is a way to help improve that:   Have a downvote initially cost more to cast for the downvoter (5 points for example) When a comment (from the downvoter) on the downvoted question/answer gets an upvote, you get your points back.   All points (ie all 5) could be refunded or just up till the traditional -1 that is in place now (ie 4 points refunded).    This would encourage good comments and downvotes for real reasons.  (Because comments for questions/answers that are bias related will not get the upvotes as readily.)  This could/should be limited to non-subjective tags.  (ie tags where a downvote just because you "don't like it" is not appropriate.) Where does gravitational waves' energy go? When does a complex matrix have a square root? What is the neccessary and sufficient condition for a matri$A \in C^{n  \times n}$ so that it has a "square root" , that is there is a matrix $B \in C^{n \times n}$ such that $A=B^2$.  I am not quite sure but I was thinking that it would be that A and B are similar. Need fast solution how to show series expansion of function at x=0:  $$f(x)=\frac{3x}{1+x^2+x^4}$$  Please some hints. Mark's generosity in this crisis seems to more than make up for his earlier stinginess.   Should those sentences always be avoided, or are there cases where they are valid? I'm using LyX and a custom class from  which is based on the  class.  I'm at another school and my advisor wants me to include titles of the readers on the signature page as well as a date line for each signator.  I've looked through some documentation on the thesis class and poked around in the .cls file in use but didn't come across anything obvious to change.  Perhaps this section would help though?  \newcommand*{\th@degreeyear}{\number\the\year} \newcommand*{\th@signature}[1]{ \begin{center}     \normalsize     \vspace*{16mm}  % works well?     \vrule width 80mm height 0.2mm\\     #1 \end{center} } \newcommand*{\th@dateline}{ \vspace*{9mm} \begin{flushright}     Date~{\vrule width 35mm height 0.2mm} \end{flushright}   How do I include this? Regular Expression Uppercase Replacement in C# I have the following C# which simply replaces parts of the input string that look like EQUIP:19d005 into URLs, like this:  input = Regex.Replace(input, @"(EQUIP:)(\S+)", @"&lt;a title=""View equipment item $2"" href=""/EquipmentDisplay.asp?eqnum=$2""&gt;$1$2&lt;/a&gt;", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);   The HTML ends up looking like this.  &lt;a title="View equipment item 19d005" href="/EquipmentDisplay.asp?eqnum=19d005"&gt;EQUIP:19d005&lt;/a&gt;   The only trouble is that the destination page expects the eqnum querystring to be all UPPERCASE so it returns the correct equipment when eqnum=19D005 but fails if it receives eqnum=19d005.  I guess I can modify and correct EquipmentDisplay.asp's errant requirement of uppercase values however, if possible I'd like to make the C# code comply with the existing classic ASP page by uppercasing the $2 in the Regex.Replace statement above.  Ideally, I'd like the HTML returned to look like this:  &lt;a title="View equipment item 19d005" href="/EquipmentDisplay.asp?eqnum=19D005"&gt;EQUIP:19d005&lt;/a&gt;   Notice although the original string was EQUIP:19d005 (lowercase), only the eqnum= value is uppercased.  Can it be done and if so, what's the tidiest way to do it? Solve a linear system with more variables than equations I understand that the word “precious” in the following quote of Maureen Dowd’s article “Heart of Darkness” (NYT, March 20) literally means “2. valuable or important and not to be wasted” as defined in OALD:     Congressman Jones read an e-mail from a former boss of General   Allen’s, giving the congressman this unvarnished assessment:   “Attempting to find a true military and political answer to the   problems in Afghanistan would take decades. Would drain our nation of   precious resources, with the most precious being our sons and daughters. Simply put, the United States cannot solve the Afghan   problem, no matter how brave and determined our troops are.   But I didn’t know “precious” has another meaning as defined in OALD: 5. (disapproving, people and their behavior) very formal, exaggerated and not natural, and Readers English Dictionary: 2.(colloquial) terrible, almost worthless, until I was told by my respected forum mate a few days ago.   Being encouraged by his suggestion for me to “ask another question if I’m not sure of what he means by describing his input as “precious” is actually rather “precious” phrasing, I would like to ask:   What is an example of “precious” being used as “disapproving” or sarcastic way (as neither OALD nor CALD provides examples)? Is there an easy way to discern the instance “precious” being used as “disapproving” from the case being used in the sense of genuine “great value” as used in the above quote other than judging from the context? I have some questions with string theory:   Why is it that there is exactly 4 large spacetime dimensions while the rest remain small? It is a nonlocal QFT. How could that fit in GR? I don't see the statistics information that's supposed to be on the status bar running along the bottom of the main window towards the right in version 2.9. Prevent text selection after double click Let $R$ be a ring and let $J$ be an ideal of $R$. Assume $J$ contains   a unit of $R$. Prove $J=R$, rigorously.   Again I feel here as if the statement is intuitive so I am not able to make it rigorous. If you could show all steps in the proof that would be nice. What methods of ‘clearfix’ can I use? Changing email addresses on my @me.com and @icloud.com Graph theory: Tree holds two sub-tree with an amount of vertices From io.Reader to string in Go How to pick one number from each sorted list so that the difference between the minimum and maximum is as small as possible? How long does it take for chat profiles to update? Following scenario:   user registers, has 1 point user visits chat, notes he cannot post because of only 1 point and needs 20 user goes back to SO, answers a question. gets enough points to chat user goes back to chat, but his profile still shows 1 point   Now my questions:   How long does it take for the profile on chat to update? Is there a way to force updating?   Update: Logging in and out did not help. I've downloaded the daily Ubuntu 12.04 iso.  I currently have windows 7 x64 operating system installed.  How can I make a bootable usb from the Ubuntu iso?