Inspired by   According to the answer, The Lord of the Rings has both half-elves and half-orcs, but no half-dwarves or half-hobbits.  Is there any example in LOTR of half-dwarves? If not, is there any clear reason? For example, is it because some sort of genetic incompatibility, or is it more because no proper dwarf would ever be caught copulating with a stinking tree-hugging elf?
So, I know that there is a race in Lord of the Rings of Peredhil  (half elf). Also, in the Hobbit (film trilogy, not book), there is a romance between a dwarf and an elf.  My question is, how do man/elf or dwarf/elf offspring work? Can they not be born? Are they born infertile because they are from parents of two different species? Are elves, dwarves, and men only different "races" of one single primordial species, and can thus reproduce any number of ways? To my knowledge, this isn't addressed in the books or films.
Can I travel to Paris for a day with a single entry visa for Schengen from Switzerland? Oracle: how to UPSERT (update or insert into a table?) The UPSERT operation either updates or inserts a row in a table, depending if the table already has a row that matches the data:  if table t has a row exists that has key X:     update t set mystuff... where mykey=X else     insert into t mystuff...   Since Oracle doesn't have a specific UPSERT statement, what's the best way to do this? Run command on another(new) terminal window I don't really know much about entropy but I learned recently that the entropy in the universe is constantly increasing and that perhaps someday we will reach maximum entropy and the universe will end in heat death. In order for this to be true there are two prerequisites:   Heat must constantly be created. There must be no way to destroy heat (at least no way that turns it into a more useful form of energy).   1 is certainly true. Every process creates some heat. When a person walks his/her feet hit the ground with kinetic energy and the friction creates heat.   But I don't see how 2 can be true. For one thing, heat never even leaves its place of origin (earth, another planet or a star). In order for heat to travel in requires air (or some other conductor/convector). Since there is no air in space there is also no heat. Heat leaves things only in the form of electromagnetic radiation (light) (in the case of earth, infrared).   So conversion from heat to light is certainly possible and is even found in nature. Now how do we get from light to other forms of energy? Well, photosynthesis. Solar panels. So this is possible too. If so, why will we ever run out of useful energy? Even if the rest of the universe does, can't we still reharness our own energy by converting the heat to light and light to other forms of energy?  Suppose the sun died (and leave aside the fact that it would first destroy earth with a supernova), can't we just put up a huge solar panel around earth to pick up all the infrared and convert it back to useful energy? Can you use two "and"s in a sentence? For example,      I like chocolate, vanilla, and lemon and orange ice cream.    Indicating "lemon and orange" is a combined flavor, as an item in the list needing an initial and. Calling future method from batch class? Hungerford's book of algebra has exercise $6$ chapter $3$ section $6$ [Probably impossible with the tools at hand.]:     Let $p \in \mathbb{Z}$ be a prime; let $F$ be a field  and let $c \in  F$. Then $x^p - c$ is irreducible in $F[x]$ if and only if $x^p - c$   has no root  in $F$. [Hint: consider two cases: char$(F) = p$ and   char$(F)$ different of $p$.]   I have attempted this a lot. Anyone has an answer? If $[\cdot]$ denotes greatest integer function, then what is the value of natural number $n$ satisfying the equation $$[\log_21]+[\log_22]+[\log_23]+\dots[\log_2n]=1538 ?$$   My try:  Note that  $$0+1\times2+2\times2^2+3\times2^3+4\times2^4+5\times2^5+6\times2^6+7\times2^7=1538$$  But the answer is $$n=\sum_{i=0}^72^i=255.$$  How is it derived? Determining the Orbits/Orbit Space of $O(3)$ on Real 3 by 3 Traceless Symmetric Matrices Let $O(n)$ be the set of $3 \times 3$ orthogonal matrices, and $S$ be the set of traceless real symmetric $3 \times 3$ matrices.  Now  $O(n)$ will act on $S$ by conjugation. Note that by the spectral theorem $ \forall A \in S$ in the orbit of $A$ there is a diagonal matrix $D=diag(\lambda_1, \lambda_2,\lambda_3)$ with $\lambda_1\le\lambda_2 \le\lambda_3 $.  Determine the all the orbits of the action &amp; the orbit space of the action.  What I've done:  Since all elements of $S$ are diagonlizable that the orbit of any element should be the orbit of its' diagonalized form because $\forall A \in S,   \exists P \in O(3)$ st  $PAP^t=D $ with $D$ a diagonal matrix and moreover for any other  $Q\in O(3)$ we get $QDQ^t=QPAP^tQ^t=(QP)A(QP)^t=RAR^t$.   And so would that imply the orbit space is just the set of traceless diagonal matrices as $tr(QDQ^t)=tr(DQ^tQ)=tr(Q)$ (cyclic property of trace) and $Q\in S$.  Any help is appreciated. How do I set up a "secure" open resolver? This is a  about securing public DNS resolvers   Open DNS servers seem pretty neat and convenient, as they provide IP addresses that we can use consistently across our company regardless of where they are located. Google and OpenDNS provide this functionality, but I'm not sure that I want these companies to have access to our DNS queries.  I want to set up something like this for use by our company, but I hear a lot about this being dangerous practice (particularly in regards to ) and I want to make sure that we do this right. What things do I need to keep in mind when building this type of environment? Exporting feature class into multiple feature classes based on field values using ArcGIS Desktop? I have a feature class with over 2,000 features, and I need to make them all individual feature classes based on a field.   Is there a way to do this? Let $n \geq 1$ be an odd integer. Show that $D_{2n}\cong \mathbb{Z}_2 \times D_n$. I define a map $$\phi:D_{2n} \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_2 \times D_n$$ by $R \mapsto (0,r^{\frac{n+1}{2}})$ and $M \mapsto(1,m)$. Then I am stuck at showing the map is bijective. By the way, do we need to show that $(0,r^{\frac{n+1}{2}})(1,m)(0,r^{\frac{n+1}{2}})^{-1}=(1,m)$ ? If we can prove this, then what can we conclude? I have to prove by induction that $$\sum_{r=0}^{n}\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}=2^k$$, using the identity $\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r-1 \end{pmatrix}+\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}=\begin{pmatrix}n+1 \\ r \end{pmatrix}$. I'm fine with everything except the inductive step, where I only managed to get as far as $$\sum_{r=0}^{k+1}\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}= \sum_{r=0}^{k}\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}+\begin{pmatrix}n \\ k+1 \end{pmatrix}$$ I tried to then use the identity and substitute $\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}=\begin{pmatrix}n+1 \\ r \end{pmatrix}-\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r-1 \end{pmatrix}$ but all this did was just take me around in a circle. I also couldn't substitute $2^k$ for $\sum_{r=0}^{k}\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}$ since this didn't properly simplify to give $2^{k+1}$. However, I think that I have to obtain the expression $\sum_{r=0}^{k}\begin{pmatrix}n \\ r \end{pmatrix}$ since it simplifies to $2^{k+1}$. But I've not been able to obtain this in anyway so I'm wondering if anyone can guide in what I need to or what direction I need to take to complete the inductive step. Compare two dates with JavaScript Can someone suggest a way to compare the values of two dates greater than, less than, and not in the past using JavaScript? The values will be coming from text boxes. Choosing the best model from among different "best" models How do you choose a model from among different models chosen by different methods (e.g. backwards or forwards selection)?  Also what is a parsimonious model? What’s the correct URL for placing a call on an iPhone? What would happen if I used regeneration on a creature that was the target of Annihilating Fire? For example, what would happen if a freshly cast  were to be regenerated in response to ?  My hypothesis is that it depends on whose turn it is. The regeneration being essentially a replacement effect, when two replacement effects were to be applied simultaneously, they are to be chosen in APNAP order. Is this correct?  I haven't thought this through to the end, though, so I'm not sure what would happen in the end. How do I install MATLAB via the ISO? Why do high resolution cameras shoot stills at high resolutions, but only typically shoot video at 1080p which is about 2 megapixels?  For example I have a Sony-NEX 6 which can shoot stills at 16 megapixels but only 1080p by 1920p video.  Also how do digital cameras separate the frames in video if the lens shutter never closes?  And if you can shoot video at 30 fps or 60 fps then why can't cameras have a continuous drives at 30 to 60 fps? Does the shapefile support mixed geometry types (ie. point and polygon all in the same file)?