On the trip to the Engineer's world, David was learning to speak their language. But where did the lessons come from? On the star maps that were left, they showed a few symbols, but   there don't seem to be enough for an entire language, and how would they know the pronunciation of the symbols?
David studies linguistics during the flight to LV-223. We get to listen and read a fable. Is it written in a real language? What is the name of the language? Can the fable be translated?  Approximate quotation:     hjewis jasma hwaelna nahast akwunsez dad'kta, tam ghermha vagam ugenthe
Windows Managers vs Login Managers Vs Display Managers Vs Desktop Environment I posted a  and noticed people weren't distinguishing correctly between many of these things: Windows Managers vs Login Managers Vs Display Managers Vs Desktop Environment.  Can someone please clear this up, i.e. tell us the difference between them and how they are related perhaps?  What category does Xorg fall under?  What about Gdm/Kdm/Xdm?  People also talk about X.  What is X? What inspired Tauriel's story arc? I know Tauriel is a Jackson created character, but I wondered if anywhere in the legendarium there was fodder for the story arc between her and Kili.  I do not have access to all my books for the time being and recall stories of love between men and elves in the Silmarillion and Appendices but don't remember any such stories between elves and dwarves and wondered if there was any basis of inspiration for this aspect of their relationship within Tolkien's works.   This movie, of course, departs even further from the original than those made before it, but as a story unto itself, I can still appreciate the ride, so if there is no Tolkien basis, what inspired Jackson, Boyens, and Walsh to create this particular arc?  Is there interview info or anything? Showing that $G/(H\cap K)\cong (G/H)\times (G/K)$ What are these dark spots in my pictures? I've been seeing these dark spots in my pictures. They appear a lot more on some pictures than others, but they are in the same place in the image and independent of the lens being used. Is this dust? I've also heard that you can get oil spots on the sensor.  The image is from a Nikon D7000. Where can I find other RPG players? I'd really like to learn how to play pen-and-paper RPGs.  I know that it takes a few players to actually sit down and play, but I'm not at all sure where to find more gamers.  How do I find existing groups to join? Or, are there any resources online that may help me find existing RPG groups or players? What's the main difference between Intel processor generations? What are the main differences between each processor generation of Intel processors/chipsets? Is there a performance difference?  I've already seen processors from first to sixth generation, however I don't know/understand the exact differences. I am trying to create a vase that looks similar to this:    If there is another post out there I will happily remove this one or redirect it there.  Specifically, I am trying to create the creased effect in the geometry that looks like it is twisting around the vase.  I have tried using Checker Deselect and extrude->scaling the verts but that really screws up my mesh.  Link to my model if it helps: I'm trying to figure out a recursive formula for the number of possible distinct binary trees at any depth d. I haven't been able to find any sort of sources on this.  basically, at depth 0, the only binary tree is the empty one so 0, 1  then at depth 1 the only possibility is a single node so 1, 1  at depth = 2 there are 3 possibilities, and at depth 3 I counted 21 possibilities.  I haven't been able to figure out some recursive reasoning for what 4 could be and so on. The only thing I have in place is that there will always be 1 for the full tree. Wanted: question mark instead of bibtex key for missing citations (biblatex) Instead of having the citation key showing up in the document for missing references, I want to only have [?], as it is the case when using the default bibtex without biblatex. This behavior is driving me crazy, as it messes up all the formatting (especially in tables). I want to focus on writing and only later on deal with the erroneous citations.  This question is related to    and its MWE can be used. However, as pointed out beforehand, I want the question mark in the text instead of the citation key to not mess up the formatting (for missing citations). Setting-up SSH-tunnel for VPN? I have a laptop running Ubuntu.  I also rent a VPS running Ubuntu.  I've bought a paid VPN-service, which I use on my laptop.  I was wondering how I can set-up a SSH-tunnel or something similar, from my laptop to the VPS I'm renting, so I then can run VPN (from my laptop) "through" it (to the VPS), to the VPN-server.  The reason I wish to do so, is that a place I often work blocks my VPN-service, but not my SSHing to my VPS...  While I have been using Linux for a while, I'm a novice when it comes to setting-up virtual network-devices, advanced routing, and so on... so please spoonfeed me (using small words and colorful pictures ;-)  I have been googling and looking at various answers on the StackExchange-network, but not seems to be exactly what I'm after.  SSH-tunneling seemed promising, but since I don't have/know an exact domain and port for my VPN, I couldn't figure out how to use it...  I guess I may need to set-up some virtual network-device on my laptop (which ends on the VPS), and connect VPN through it - but how to do this, sadly goes over my head. What is the safest way to clean up /boot partition? I have 200 MB assigned for the /boot partition.  Whenever I try to update the kernel, I receive an error message that basically states /boot is full.  What can I do to cleanup /boot and remove/backup the older kernels? The essential gist of my question relates to what the real, unvarnished realities are of graduate, post-graduate, research, fellowship, and professorship attainment - when you aren't a single person with no pressing demands other than feeding yourself.   [EDIT: I am humbled by the incredibly helpful and thoughtful responses so far, all of which are +1 from me. I'll leave the question open a few more days before clicking 'accept' on any one, but you all have my gratitude and I hope others will benefit anywhere near as much as I have. ]  What I don't know is what succeeding in this path truly requires in time committment and family support.   Right now I can handle a 12-14 credit course schedule with 3.7-4.0 GPA (in the top 5-10% for college and program, dean's list, etc), work part-time, and still have time to be home and not have a burn-out/breakdown - and the academics are the easy part by far! I could do more, but I need to work more too.   What I really need to know is how sharply different is the time/dedication curve of graduate work and above. I realize each step is a filter that removes most of the entrants (most people don't get a degree, most who do don't attend/finish graduate school, most who do don't seek a PhD,  most who do don't seek/gain professorship...and on and on). But I don't know how severe the stepping is - I'm not talking "tenured professor at MIT or bust" - I realize that bar is many orders of magnitude higher.  Background Details: As an "adult, returning" undergraduate student with a (disabled) wife and kids, I'm halfway through a bachelor degree now. I've located a field of study (in a focus of Industrial Engineering) that has made me very interested in altering my life path to include seeking a Masters and maybe even a PhD/professorship (my father was a professor, so its not a purely novel concept to me). I've met and spoken with my advisor and 2 other professors with experience in related fields, and all is encouraging; I have a graduate school in mind, I've received lots of great advice on preparing for school (on this forum and in person), I test well (no GRE fears remain), good grades/class rank, good prospects for future strong referal letters, etc - a comparitively charmed existence for which I am very grateful! I just have to investigate whether I can make it through with an intact, cared for family!  Any guidance you could provide me, and other aspiring "non-traditional" students alike, would be appreciated immensely - thank you! I want to save a backup of my data on a remote server, but never want the backup server to see the data unencrypted. Editing a single file and backing up should not result in everything being encrypted and sent again. The remote server should preferably not even know the directory structure (and especially not the directory names).  Is there such a solution? Why does the symbol for the multiplication operation change shape? Why does the "$\times$" used in arithmetic change to a "$\cdot$" as we progress through education? The symbol seems to only be ambiguous because of the variable $x$; however, we wouldn't have chosen the variable $x$ unless we were already removing $\times$ as the symbol for multiplication. So why do we? I am very curious. It seems like $\times$ is already quite sufficient as a descriptive symbol. Schadenfreude is the joy or pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. What is the word for joy or pleasure derived from the happiness of others? Left ideals of $M_n(K)$ Why is $2\pi i \neq 0?$ Where has all the RAM gone? I had always kind of wondered why we didn't see interference in things like windows -- we were taught that the condition is that the thickness of the film/slab/medium just has to be an integral number of wavelengths, $d=m\lambda$. My logic was, if visible light has wavelengths ~400-780nm, any window pane has got to be an integral number of wavelengths (or close to integral) for some of the wavelengths in the visible.  For example, if a window is, $6mm = 6\times10^6nm$ thick, then you should see interference for wavelengths (and some range around them) 200nm, 250nm, 300nm, 400nm, 500nm, 600nm... Because 6mm is an integral number of each of those.  Obviously that would be really annoying and isn't the case. I found  (warning: PDF) source that seems to explain it and I was wondering if what they're saying is sound. On the 10th page (p171 for them), it says that the reason we don't see this interference is that no window is that smooth, it has a variance in the thickness of at least several wavelengths, so the interference effect is effectively average out among all those thicknesses, which usually gets rid of it. They do the math and show that.  Is that the reason?  If so, that leads me to two questions: Could we, if we were really careful and used something like MBE, make a glass window with that sort of accuracy, and then see interference effects in the optical range? I know that quartz crystal monitors can easily give you nanometer accuracy for evaporators and sputterers, but they also have pretty limited growth rates.  My second question is, then, do we see interference effects in glass windows with electromagnetic radiation of a comparable wavelength, like microwaves?  Thanks! of a monic polynomial $f \in \mathbb F\left[x\right]$ in $1$ variable $x$ over a field $\mathbb F$ plays an important role in understanding the structure of finite dimensional $\mathbb F[x]$-modules.  It is an important fact that the characteristic polynomial and the minimal polynomial of $C(f)$ are both equal to $f$. This can be seen quite easily by induction on the degree of $f$.  Does anyone know a different proof of this fact? I would love to see a graph theoretic proof or a non inductive algebraic proof, but I would be happy with anything that makes it seem like more than a coincidence!