Reason behind dependence of forces on the medium
Gravitational shielding and equivalence principle
My keyboard is typing by itself, could there be a ghost in it? The keyboard on my laptop seems to be typing by itself:   It sometimes types characters like 134, whether by itself or when I hit certain keys. Repeating characters may appear unexpectedly. The system volume may change by itself, or windows like the Print dialog or Web browser may appear.   This can happen without any input or as I type, and may occur more often when certain keys are pressed. Sometimes, the keyboard fails to respond altogether. This is happening regardless of the software involved.  Is there a ghost in my keyboard—is my keyboard broken?  A sample of text from the keyboard might look like this (normal QWERTY...ASDF...ZXC... sequence is expected):   QWERTYUIOPASDF)(G@*HKLZXCVBN QWERTYIOPASDFGL!#ZXCVB13 QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVB!#N qwertyu41iopasdf19g13h28j113k4113zxcvb4n qwerty4u1iopasdf0g7h1jklzxcvb13m qwert13uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuiopasdf87091134ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh13jk13zxcvb14      This question comes up often and the answers are usually the same. This post is meant to provide a definitive, canonical answer for this problem. Feel free to edit the answer to add additional details. How do I get add-apt-repository to work through a proxy? I'm trying to follow the  (on my Ubuntu 10.04 VM).  The first step is:  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/toolchain   But when I run that I get:  Error reading https://launchpad.net/api/1.0/~linaro-maintainers/+archive/toolchain: &lt;urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out&gt;   I'm guessing the problem is with my configuration for my employer's proxy server, particularly for HTTPS.  When I opened  in Firefox, I got "The connection has timed out".  I then went into Firefox Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings... and set HTTP Proxy to "gateway" and Port to 8080, and checked "Use this proxy server for all protocols".  Then the page loaded.  This supports my theory.  I've tried setting the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables (both lower and upper case):  $ set | grep -i proxy HTTPS_PROXY=https://gateway:8080 HTTP_PROXY=http://gateway:8080 http_proxy=http://gateway:8080 https_proxy=https://gateway:8080   I also tried changing them to:  $ set | grep -i proxy HTTPS_PROXY=gateway:8080 HTTP_PROXY=gateway:8080 http_proxy=gateway:8080 https_proxy=gateway:8080   And I tried adding this second line to /etc/apt/apt.conf:  Acquire::http::proxy "http://gateway:8080/"; Acquire::https::proxy "https://gateway:8080/";   But I continue to get the same error.  How do I troubleshoot this?  Update: I followed the instructions in the  to  and got further:  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/toolchain Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 1DD749B890A6F66D050D985CF1FCBACA7BE1F97B gpg: requesting key 7BE1F97B from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect to host gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found. gpg: Total number processed: 0   I wonder if the "HTTP fetch error" means I also need to add "Defaults env_keep = http_proxy" to /etc/sudoers...  Update #2: I added:  Defaults env_keep="http_proxy" Defaults env_keep="https_proxy"   ...as in , but I still get the same "gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect to host" error.  And this is curious:  $ sudo env | grep proxy https_proxy=https://gateway:8080   ...because http_proxy isn't there.  Any advice is appreciated.  Update #3: Since the host of my VM is a laptop, I took it home and tried there (with no proxies):  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/toolchain Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 1DD749B890A6F66D050D985CF1FCBACA7BE1F97B gpg: requesting key 7BE1F97B from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com gpg: key 7BE1F97B: public key "Launchpad Linaro Overlay PPA" imported gpg: Total number processed: 1 gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)   It worked.  So problem is related to proxy configuration.  But I suppose I have a workaround. Compute the Riemann integral  $$\int_0^{\frac\pi2}\frac{\mathrm d \theta}{\sqrt{\sin \theta}}$$  It seems very difficult, I don't know how to go ahead.  Thank you very much for your help! In my situation, it's for a local build/staging server running ubuntu server. Things I'd like to know are:  Why I should/shouldn't use LVM?  What problems might it cause in terms of either regular server operation or things I might want to do later? (ex. partitioning)  Why I should/shouldn't use encrypted LVM instead of LVM?  What problems might encrypted LVM cause in terms of either regular server operation or things I might want to do later? (ex. partitioning) What is the best way to find out a researcher's current affiliation? Let's say I know a name and a field, but not much more.   A google search seems like the most obvious approach, but unfortunately university personnel or research group pages often seem to be quite poorly maintained, and it is not uncommon that someone is listed even if they left more than a year ago.  Early-career researchers are particularly difficult to track down since they often have less of a "presence" on institution webpages and are likely to be moving relatively frequently. "Delete this answered question?" when the only answer is deleted Looks like there's a small bug in the UI: I posted a question here on meta.SE which ended up being just something dumb I was doing and no use to anyone in the future. At first I posted an answer saying what the dumb thing was, but then I realized that the whole thing had no value, so I deleted the answer, and then deleted the question — whereupon it asked me:  Delete this answered question? We do not recommend deleting questions with answers because doing so deprives future readers of this knowledge. Repeated deletion of answered questions can result in your account being blocked from asking. Are you sure you wish to delete?  (Screenshot below) Probably shouldn't ask (or add to the tally) if the only answers are deleted ones... The "Satellite Paradox": Twin paradox in orbiting satellites I want to simply eliminate the effect of acceleration, which is the cornerstone in resolving the traditional twin paradox, through the following thought experiment: Assume twins $A$ &amp; $B$ are located in the same orbital height, far away from the surface of a massive planet, on a long concrete column at rest WRT the planet. A rapid explosion that happens between the twins makes them orbit the earth with a high velocity, say, $0.6 \ c$, in the same orbital path but in different directions. According to relativity, since the orbiting satellites are completely inertial frames, each twin attributes a variable time dilation to the other one, and each twin expects the other one to be younger. Nonetheless, these twins are automatically reunited after traveling half of the orbit's circumference without being affected by additional accelerations. Which twin is younger in this case? Indeed, If each twin sees the other's clock as running slow all along the way, how can the clocks agree when they meet? For this configuration:  The acceleration due to the explosion does not affect the twins' clock rates since it occurs abruptly in the same place on the column where the twins are located back-to-back. The clocks have been synchronized just before the explosion.  The traditional gamma factor, attributed to one twin from the viewpoint of the other, is variable because the resultant velocity of one twin complying with the relativistic velocity addition is a variable measured from the viewpoint of the other one. However, whether or not the corresponding time dilation is varying, each twin anticipates the other one to be younger. There is no breaking of symmetry!  The $g$-field of the planet has nothing to do with orbiting satellites since they are inertial, and thus GR corrections are not inserted. (Remember the GPS settings!) Triggered send status queued, need to get an alert What exactly is a distribution? I know very little of Probability and Statistics, and am wishing to learn.  I see the word "distribution" used all over the place in different contexts.  For example, a discrete random variable has a "probability distribution."  I know what this is. A continuous random variable has a probability density function, then for $x\in\mathbb{R}$, the integral from $-\infty$ to $x$ of the probability density function is the cumulative distribution function evaluated at $x$.   And apparently just "distribution function" is synonymous with "cumulative distribution function," at least when talking about continuous random variables (question: are they always synonyms?).  Then there are many famous distributions.  $\Gamma$ distribution $\chi^2$ distribution, etc.  But what exactly is a $\Gamma$ distribution?  Is it the cumulative distribution function of a $\Gamma$ random variable?  Or the probability density function of a $\Gamma$ random variable?  But then a frequency distribution of a finite data set appears to be a histogram.  Long story short: in Probability and Statistics, what is the definition of the word "distribution"?    I know the definition of distribution in Mathematics (an element of the dual space of the collection of test functions equipped with the inductive limit topology), but not Probability and Statistics. Getting coordinates by clicking on QGIS Canvas with PyQGIS? Are there any procedures when working with QgsMapCanvas (pyqgis, qgis) in order to obtain a pair of coordinates by clicking on the map canvas?   Are there any sample Python codes that demonstrate this? Is "funnest" a word? How can I add motion to a rigid body? I'm trying to create a bowling animation and I want the ball to hit the pins. I already added the Rigid Body physics to the objects but can't get the ball to move.  Obviously I could just add keyframes but   that seems to interfere with the Rigid Body physics it doesn't look too realistic.   Is there a way to add some kind of motion to the ball? How do i create a linestring from points sort by date in PostgreSQL?  I tried:  SELECT observations.id,    ST_MakeLine(observations.geom ORDER BY observations.date) AS newgeom    FROM   observations     GROUP BY    observations.id;   This is going wrong. It returns me a linestring with same coordinates.  So, instead of a line from a to b, it gives me a to a.    What am I doing wrong? If $ad$ and $bc$ are odd and even, respectively, then prove that $ax^3+bx^2+cx+d$ has an irrational root. $\displaystyle ax^3+bx^2+cx+d$ is a polynomial with integer coefficients. It is given that $ad,\,bc$ are odd and even respectively. Then prove that not all roots of the polynomial are rational.  It is easy to see that none of the roots are integer. But how to tackle the rational case? Any help is appreciated. Proof for alternative definition of the derivative I read somewhere recently that you can define the derivative as follows:  $$f'(x) = \lim_{h, k \to 0^+} \frac{f(x +h) - f(x - k)}{h + k}$$   I have been trying to prove this for about 2 hours, and can't seem to get it done. How should I proceed?  Edit: Assume $f$ is differentiable for all $x \in (x - \delta, x + \delta)$ for some $\delta &gt; 0$. A way to store potentially infinite 2D map data? I have a 2D platformer that currently can handle chunks with 100 by 100 tiles, with the chunk coordinates are stored as longs, so this is the only limit of maps (maxlong*maxlong). All entity positions etc etc are chunk relevant and so there is no limit there.  The problem I'm having is how to store and access these chunks without having thousands of files. Any ideas for a preferably quick &amp; low HD cost archive format that doesn't need to open everything at once? How do I make protocol foo hostname-aware? This is a  about hostname-awareness and proxying.   I know that some protocols are hostname-aware; that is, when I connect to the HTTP server at www.example.com it knows I want www.example.com's HTTP service, not www.example.net's, even though they are on the same IP address.  How can I do this for protocol foo?  (Temporary note: this question appears pursuant to .) Opening a context menu (with the Menu key) Area enclosed between the curves $y=x^2$ and $y=60-7x$ Let $X$ be an arbitrary random variable  takes values in $\{0,1,2,...,10\}$. What are the minimum and  maximum values of variance of random variable $X$?