I have a function call that will occasionally get stuck. I would like to wrap this function with a decorator that throws an exception if the function call takes more than (say) 60s to complete. How would I do this? I thought about using a separate thread with a counter that would automatically manage a timer. The thread timer should automatically reset after the function completes, as I don't want to keep spawning new threads. How would I do this? Does this already exist in a library? Thanks!
There is a socket related function call in my code, that function is from another module thus out of my control, the problem is that it blocks for hours occasionally, which is totally unacceptable, How can I limit the function execution time from my code? I guess the solution must utilize another thread.
Getting ssh to execute a command in the background on target machine This is a follow-on question to the  question.  If I want to execute a command on the remote machine that runs in the background on that machine, how do I get the ssh command to return?  When I try to just include the ampersand (&amp;) at the end of the command it just hangs.  The exact form of the command looks like this: ssh user@target &quot;cd /some/directory; program-to-execute &amp;&quot;  Any ideas?  One thing to note is that logins to the target machine always produce a text banner and I have SSH keys set up so no password is required. How do I distinguish between a command, utility, or builtin for getting documentation? I'm running Bash scripting, but sometimes I get confused which of these commands I use belong to who. Sometimes man xxx works, sometimes doesn't, so I use --help or info, mostly one of these works to show description of the command. Can anyone tell me how I would know what command belongs to what? Bash builtin, GNU utility, etc. \numcases with \tag I would like to label some cases with specific tags, and was hoping for something like  \begin{numcases}{A = } \frac{r}{a} &amp; r &gt; a \tag{G} \\ \frac{a}{r} &amp; r &lt; a \tag{H} \end{numcases}   utilizing the numcasesenvironment from the cases package, and \tag from amsmath. However, the two don't seem to be compatible:     ! Package amsmath Error: \tag not allowed here.   Is there any alternatives that would do what I hope to accomplish? My disk already has 4 primary partitions, how can I install Ubuntu? I would like to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7 on a HP G62 Notebook. Although I have installed  Ubuntu in a dual-boot many times before, I found out that this model has already four partitions.    Partitions:   SYSTEM (NTFS, 199MB, used 66.59MB) Partition without any tag: NTFS (579GM, used 129GB)  RECOVERY (NTFS 16.74 GB, used 2.42GB)  HP_TOOLS (FAT32, 103.34 MB, used 13.23MB)   Since I am not an expert with partitions I would like to get advice on how to do this.  My first idea is this one:   Free some space from /dev/sda2 (I don't know if could also free some other space) delete the HP_Tools partition (I have already created a backup) create an extended partition with the free space in #1 containing three parititions: swap (1gb); / (EXT4, 30GB);  /home (EXT4, 120GB)   Another option is to use wubi instead.  What do you think? Is there any other way to achieve this?  PS: I really think this HP policy of using 4 partitions is not a coincidence  PS: I tried using gparted from the live CD and I got a warning message saying that if I freed some space from /dev/sda2 I could create serious issues in the system How can I take shallow depth of field photos with a point-and-shoot camera? I have a compact digital camera, and in macro mode I can manage to achieve a blurred background, if the background is far enough away. Can this be done when taking non-macro pictures, and if not, is there a way to simulate it?  When I shoot portraits with my brother's DSLR, it is quite easy to fade out the background. But with my point and shoot camera, I haven't been able to take such photos.   I choose a large aperture for my camera but it still doesn't work. I know that standing further and zooming will result in a smaller depth of field, but it doesn't seem to be enough to get the really nice "bokeh" look. I've tried macro mode, and that will work if the subject is close enough and the background far enough away, but how can it be done with non-macro pictures?   Why are DSLR cameras are so much better in this area? What are the general recommendations to do this using a compact or super-zoom camera? Is there a 2D generalization of the coefficient of restitution? The  characterizes a collision in one dimension by relating the initial and final speeds of the particles involved,  $$C_R = -\frac{v_{2f} - v_{1f}}{v_{2i} - v_{1i}}$$   In a 2D collision, the velocity can be split into components parallel and perpendicular to the "plane of collision" (the plane tangent to the two objects' surfaces at their contact point), and the equation above applies to the perpendicular components of the velocities only. One could write  $$\begin{pmatrix}v_{2f\shortparallel} - v_{1f\shortparallel} \\ v_{2f\perp} - v_{1f\perp}\end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix}1 &amp; 0 \\ 0 &amp; -C_R\end{pmatrix}\begin{pmatrix}v_{2i\shortparallel} - v_{1i\shortparallel} \\ v_{2i\perp} - v_{1i\perp}\end{pmatrix}$$   My question is, is it useful (i.e. does it produce a more accurate description of realistic 2D collisions) to generalize that matrix? Perhaps by allowing the top left element to be unequal to 1, or allowing nonzero off-diagonal elements? Or is there some nonlinear relation that works better?  As usual, if you know of any relevant published research, references would be much appreciated. PHP parse_ini_file work on URL? I want to better understand why the construction something + [adjective] makes grammatical sense. Background: I was recently reading a Washington Post article and came across the following sentence.  So if you fall in that category, [the movie] feels more like magic than repetitive.  (Note: I've copied the relevant spoiler-free sentence above; following the link to the article will open you up to movie spoilers! ) The phrase more like magic than repetitive struck me as odd, presumably because it was non-parallel (more like [noun] than [adjective]). I would have expected &quot;...more like magic than something repetitive.&quot; (Actually, that needs to be rewritten to flow better, but the point is that at least it appears to be grammatical.) Thus, one would have the noun phrase &quot;something repetitive,&quot; of the form &quot;[noun] [adjective].&quot; This got me to thinking about the use of adjectives after nouns. There is a great Stack Exchange article  that involves the characteristics of the adjective that indicate it should come after the noun. But I haven't been able to find examples of how the word &quot;something&quot; requires a postponed adjective. Consider the following sentences:  I want to buy something red. I am looking for something sweet to eat.  You cannot say:  *I want to buy red something. *I am looking for sweet something to eat.  But you can say:  I want to buy something (that is) red. I am looking for something (that is) sweet to eat.  So, my question:  Do the above examples mean that the &quot;something [adjective]&quot; construction is an example of the ellipsis of &quot;that is&quot;?  Is there something special about the word &quot;something&quot; that requires the postponed adjective? Note that I am NOT looking for details about adjectives that are postponed; I'm interested in the word that precedes the adjective (either &quot;something&quot; or similar words).   By the way, I am not interested in the following constructions, which are different:  I want to paint the house red. I tried to build the brick house taller.  Thanks in advance! Creating all possible line segments between all points using QGIS To do a patch manually I must type this command   sudo ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh 09_delete_old_data_p.sql     There is a space just before the 09:   sudo ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh [space] 09_delete_old_data_p.sql   How can I run this inside a script?  There are also several other commands but this one is giving trouble. Say I have a module $M$ over a ring $R$ that is   $1.$ finitely-generated, i.e. $\exists$ finite $X \subset M$ such that $M = \sum_{i=1}^{n} Rx_{i}, x_{i}\in X$ (but $X$ is not necessarily free)  $2.$ free, i.e. $\exists$ a basis $Y \subset M$ a.k.a. $Y$ is free and generates M, (but $Y$ is not necessarily finite).  Now I want to show, that there exists a finite basis for $M$. For vector spaces, this would obviously be trivial, but for some  $R$-Modul, I'm not sure how to proceed.   Furthermore, is every minimal generating subset of $M$ a basis? Extending from two classes Open more than one instance of Windows 10 settings How can I open more than one instance of the Windows settings?  It wasn't a problem with the old style, but with the new one I can't seem to open multiple settings simultaneously and side by side.  Example of the new settings window: How to reset Canon 70D WiFi? When I go to the WiFi Settings in Camera (Canon 70D) all I see is:  Connection:   Exit Confirm Set Error Details (greyed out)   I can't recall the password or find any way to reset it. Some I found () say the Camera should say Infrastructure mode. Inside the Confirm Settings I can see on page 3 it shows:     Connect'n method: Camera access point mode   But again I see no way to change this.  On my Smartphone EOS Remote app there's a Connection Guide with completely different menus from what I'm seeing on the Camera.  Any idea how I can reset the WiFi Name and Password on the Canon 70D? I have an instance of a System.Drawing.Bitmap and would like to make it available to my WPF app in the form of a System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapImage.  What would be the best approach for this? If an edit was suggested to an answer to my question and I go to this edit, I see the checkmark I tried a couple of substitutions but have so far gotten nowhere. Can anyone guide me in the right direction? Thanks for your time. I am trying to follow Blender Guru's beginner tutorial. He went to the Compositor tab and was using it to Denoise an image but when I got there, no nodes show up. Can you guys help? I have an UTF-8, polish text in .tex file. When I open it with my LEd (LaTeX editor), it shows ok (all characters can be seen). But when I try to compile it, I get error:  Package inputenc Error: Keyboard character used is undefined (inputenc) in inputencoding `utf8'.   I have to copy the text, cut it and paste to Notepad++, change (not convert!) encoding from UTF8 to ANSI (the polish characters will be missed and replaces with some random characters). Than copy it again and paste to LEd (in that editor, characters display bad also). But now I can compile my pdf and in it, the encoding is right again.  Is there a way to set encoding in the way I will see characters in LEd propertly and I will be able to compile it and I will get good characters in pdf?  The begging of my code:  \documentclass[12pt]{report} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsfonts} \usepackage{txfonts} Proving the set of points at which a function diverges to $\infty$ is countable Let $f\colon\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$. Prove that the set    $$\{x \mid \mbox{if $y$ converges to $x$, then $f(y)$ converges to $\infty$}\}$$ is countable.   My book told me to consider  $g(x)=\arctan(f(x))$, then it said "it is easy to see the set is countable." But I still can't understand what it mean.