i am making a plant and i have run into some problems. I have here some grass blade texture:     And since i want the whole pot to be filled with grass blades, i duplicated them until it filled the whole pot:     but as you can see, some of the image planes look like they have a black background:     Here is my node setup:
Having problems with hair transparency using cycles. I ported over a model from daz studio (have done this a few times before with no issues).   Using a simple mix shader, transparent top, diffuse bottom, black/white texture in the fac.  Heres the blend  with images packed.
I need to add a specific column if it does not exist. I have something like the following, but it always returns false:  IF EXISTS(SELECT *           FROM   INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS           WHERE  TABLE_NAME = 'myTableName'                  AND COLUMN_NAME = 'myColumnName')    How can I check if a column exists in a table of the SQL Server database? My keyboard doesn't have an Fn key so I can't get the coordinates to show up. I don't know how to get into the multiplayer settings and Shift + F3 doesn't work either.  How can I fix this? Any thoughts on how one might clear the Android Marketplace search history? For instance, if I recently searched for an android app in the marketplace, the marketplace search maintains a history list of which apps/keywords that I have recently looked for.    Thanks in advance! "std::endl" vs "\n" Many C++ books contain example code like this...  std::cout &lt;&lt; "Test line" &lt;&lt; std::endl;   ...so I've always done that too. But I've seen a lot of code from working developers like this instead:  std::cout &lt;&lt; "Test line\n";   Is there a technical reason to prefer one over the other, or is it just a matter of coding style? Why is time evolution unitary? Is the reason why the time evolution operator is unitary based on purely physical arguments, i.e. that the physical processes that an isolated system undergoes shouldn't depend on any particular instant in time (homogeneity of time); thus two experimenters who conduct the same experiment starting from the same initial state, but at different times, should have the same probability amplitude for that state?! Or is there some mathematical argument as well?  Also, is the reason why the time evolution operator is linear implied by the superposition principle (as an arbitrary state can be expressed as a linear combination of basis states the operator should act linearly as otherwise the state as a whole would evolve differently to the superposition of states that it was initially represented by)?! There was a great SF story I read some time ago (probably 25+ years ago) where there was a well known treasure trove, guarded by a killer robot that would ask all comers a series of difficult questions from all areas (math, physics, literature, history, etc.)  But everyone eventually failed and died... until the last person managed to make it past the robot:     By just answering gibberish to the robot.  Unfortunately, after collecting a ton of treasure, the robot casually asked him why he wanted it, he answered in a sensible way (something like "because it's valuable"), and the robot killed him, because he failed the final test.   Any ideas who wrote this?  What it was titled? What is the difference between Parse() and TryParse()?  int number = int.Parse(textBoxNumber.Text);  // The Try-Parse Method int.TryParse(textBoxNumber.Text, out number);   Is there some form of error-checking like a Try-Catch Block? chown -R root.root / So I was working and there was a directory that I was periodically changing to my user in  a root terminal so that I could open the files in text editors, but I accidentally pressed / instead of . and this was the command I put out:  chown -R emil.emil /   Then immediately panicked ^C and put in another command, as I thought I could always change back the files I needed to access:  chown -R root.root /   So now I can't do su from emil to even try to fix this, as I'm getting permission denied error. I'm on Ubuntu could someone tell me if there is a way I could fix this, without absolutely reinstalling the whole thing.  TIP  If you are trying to get root access, and are getting this permission denied error when using su try this command:  gksu gnome-terminal   It will prompt you for the root password and open a new root terminal for some reason this works and gives me root access, when su doesn't. How can I extract a predetermined range of lines from a text file on Unix? I have a ~23000 line SQL dump containing several databases worth of data. I need to extract a certain section of this file (i.e. the data for a single database) and place it in a new file. I know both the start and end line numbers of the data that I want.  Does anyone know a Unix command (or series of commands) to extract all lines from a file between say line 16224 and 16482 and then redirect them into a new file? Creating point features with exact coordinates in QGIS Overriding public virtual functions with private functions in C++ I need another LP-E5 type battery for my Canon 450D. Should I buy an original Canon battery or one of the many generic brands available? There are loads of cheapos on , for example.  I should add that the new battery will be added to my existing Canon battery in a battery grip.  Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) of using generic batteries? Sending file of custom python script with all parameters for popup interface already defined? I have a python script in ArcGIS 10 that when clicked, has a popup for a user to choose parameters. I would like to send this file to someone else. While I could send them the python code and have them setup the parameters - this method repeats work I have already done.   I would like to send someone one file that contains all of this information so they can just recieve my file, add it to a toolbox, and then have it all work. I am wondering where the file resides that has both the python code and parameters / what is the export process/ file type I should be looking at? (All the searches I do for "export script" seem to refer to exporting a model to python code...) Add a confirmation before moving comments to a chat Most of you if not everybody will agree that the stronger the gravitational pull, the faster an object will fall. For example, on a planet with 50 times the gravity of Earth, any object will hit the ground on that planet much quicker than it would on Earth. So taking all of these into the equation, does it mean that at a blackhole, an object will fall at an infinite speed because of the infinitely strong gravitational pull of the blackhole? I need to prove that $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} {\sin{100n}} \; \text{diverges}$$ I think the best way to do it is to show that $\lim_{n\to \infty}{\sin{100n}}\not=0$. But how do I prove it? If $A$ has two eigenvalues $\lambda _1, \lambda_2$ and $\dim (E_{\lambda_1})=n-1$, then $A$ is diagonalizable $n$th derivative of $e^x \sin x$ I have $a,b,c\in\mathbb{Q}$ not all zero. ($a^2+b^2+c^2\ne 0$), I want to show that the following determinant is then non-zero. I failed to arrive at an appropriate form of the polynomial. Help please. $$\left|\begin{bmatrix} a &amp; 2c &amp; 2b\\b &amp; a &amp; 2c\\ c &amp; b &amp; a\end{bmatrix}\right| = a^3+2 b^3-6 a b c+4 c^3$$    Second question, what is the easiest way to argue that $\{1,\sqrt[3]{2},(\sqrt[3]{2})^2\}$ is linearly independent in $\mathbb{Q}$?    Motivation: Prove that $\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt[3]{2}] = \{a+b\sqrt[3]{2}+c(\sqrt[3]{2})^2\;|\;a,b,c\in\mathbb{Q}\}$ forms a field.   Proof: Since $\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt[3]{2}] \subset \mathbb{R}$, we prove $\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt[3]{2}]$ is a subfield of $(\mathbb{R},+,\cdot)$    $\forall (a+b\sqrt[3]{2}+c(\sqrt[3]{2})^2)\in \mathbb{Q}[\sqrt[3]{2}]\backslash\{0\}.$ We want to find $(a+b\sqrt[3]{2}+c(\sqrt[3]{2})^2)$ such that    $(a+b\sqrt[3]{2}+c(\sqrt[3]{2})^2)(d+e\sqrt[3]{2}+f(\sqrt[3]{2})^2) =$ $ (ad+2ec+2bf)+(ae+bd+2cf)\sqrt[3]{2}+(af+cd+be)(\sqrt[3]{2})^2 = 1$    Since $\{1,\sqrt[3]{2},(\sqrt[3]{2})^2\}$ is linearly independent (?) over $\mathbb{Q}$, we show there is unique solution to: $$\begin{bmatrix} a &amp; 2c &amp; 2b\\b &amp; a &amp; 2c\\ c &amp; b &amp; a\end{bmatrix} \cdot \left[\begin{array}{l l} d\\e\\f \end{array}\right] = \left[\begin{array}{l l} 1\\0\\0 \end{array}\right] $$ Which is equivalent in showing the determinant is non-zero $$\left|\begin{bmatrix} a &amp; 2c &amp; 2b\\b &amp; a &amp; 2c\\ c &amp; b &amp; a\end{bmatrix}\right| = a^3+2 b^3-6 a b c+4 c^3=(?)$$    By subfield test, 1)2)3)4) is enough to say that $(\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt[3]{2}],+,\cdot)$ is a subfield of $(\mathbb{R},+,\cdot)$ therefore a field.  EDIT: If you have shorter way that prove the proposition without touching my 2 questions, that is even better. Creating Inky-looking characters in Blender